


The Long Haul

by Gilded_Pleasure



Series: Good Intentions [3]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Depression, Domestic Fluff, Drug Use, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Judge Sans (Undertale), Light Angst, Long-Term Relationship(s), Medicinal and Recreational, Mentally Ill Skeletons Give and Recieve Love, Nonstandard Conflict Resolution, Other, Self-Esteem Issues, Sir This is My Emotional Support Juggalo, background spicyhoney, kustard - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:00:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 44,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26322307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gilded_Pleasure/pseuds/Gilded_Pleasure
Summary: Fluff Prompts Bingo!!6 long form Kustard stories based on prompts, all about Sans and Red being dumpster possums hopelessly in love!! These are my softest skeletons from Short and Sweet, now in it for The Long Haul! Or at least more than 100 words at a time.The prompts I am using are from Here.-First Kiss-Cuddles-Swingset-Cold Mornings-Rainy Nights-Family Dinner-Bonus: Lazy Afternoons
Relationships: Sans/Sans (Undertale)
Series: Good Intentions [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1844599
Comments: 112
Kudos: 138





	1. First Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sans and Red’s first kiss goes surprisingly well.
> 
> [Hozier – Work Song](https://youtu.be/nH7bjV0Q_44)

“c’n i have a hug?”

Red’s eye lights practically creak as they tear themselves away from the TV and hit Sans with a thud.

“uh…what?”

“a hug,” Sans tries again. “can i have one?”

Sans doesn’t stir from where he’s sprawled on his side like he fell there a while back and couldn’t get up, but this is just how he relaxes. Red’s sitting on the middle of his spine in his usual spread eagle slump, mellowing out on this random show they discovered where puppets make fun of bad movies.

It’s the kind of experience that demands absolutely nothing from the viewer, not even paying attention. Sans has been playing Bejeweled and reading papers challenging his last one in intermittent driblets on his phone since….who knows. Discovery turned into a marathon at some point yesterday, maybe.

Red actually _has_ been watching it full on, hence the squeaky hinges on the attention switch. Sans doesn’t remember the last time one of them said something. Red’s gaze is weighty as hell, but also somehow simultaneously demands nothing. Sans doesn’t know why Red’s so hard for him to read. You’d think someone who’s also basically _you_ would be an open book, but…not so much.

“why?” Red asks with absolutely no inflection.

Because he’s lonely. Because no one except his brother has touched him for more than a few seconds in nearly a year. Because Red’s one of the few people he feels like he can ask without risking something amorphous and inexplicable that he is nevertheless not willing to.

“because i want one,” he rumbles, since that is also true. “it’s just a question,” he continues, belatedly getting flustered, “and ‘no’ is an answer.”

A faint crease appears between Red’s sockets, like Sans’s disclaimer is weirder than asking for a hug in the first place. Which it isn’t, but Red’s over there acting like he doesn’t know it’s weird, as if he was-

“how ‘bout a cuddle?” Red asks, tilting his skull at the TV and keeping his eyes on Sans. “i wanna see how many more pieces a magic jewelry are gonna deus outta this machina.”

Sweat mists his frontal bone, but with him that doesn’t really mean much. He’s just a sweaty guy. Probably partly from carrying around the sheer amount of magic that holds him together. It’s what gently swells out the front of his threadbare black band shirt, its overwhelming force _in potentia_ holding his clothes away from his bones same as Sans, just a little more. Funny, because his scarred bones are slightly smaller all over. A touch more delicate. Kind of a weird way to think about it, and he doesn’t know why he is. All it means is Red’s a little fatter, Sans slightly bigger-boned. Heh.

Sans does something like a shrug, something like a nod.

Red grunts, pulls his stocking feet up on the couch cushion. He stands up on it, which—okay, that surprises Sans a little. But he just walks across the cushions to Sans’s side of the couch and bends over to touch the armrest above his head. Then he slots himself neatly between Sans and the back of the couch, lowering himself quick in a weird sideways pushup. Also surprising.

Not as surprising as how good it actually feels to have all that _potentia_ crammed right up against him, gently thrumming and alive, touching him in all the right ways and none of the wrong ones. Red puts an arm over him like an afterthought, but the way it settles Sans back against him is careful and precise. Sans had no idea he actually carried tension is his body, but he discovers there was a surprising amount as it drains away into Red’s cradling warmth.

His lumbar has never been this supported.

Oh god. It’s nice. It is _really_ nice.

Red’s got his bigass head balanced partly on the arm of the couch and partly on his fist, chin hovering over Sans’s skull. Every once in a while he frowns, exhales with a subvocal grunt like he always does when he’s watching something. Sans can feel it from this close. Little puffs that tickle the rims of his sockets.

He smells inexplicably and pleasantly of grape soda, along with his usual sweaty skeleton smell. Seems Sans finds the combination agreeable enough to make the pleasant looseness in his hips from getting cuddled turn a little warmer than he expected. The warmth begins a slow creep into the bowl of his pelvis, and Sans looks around for a distraction.

“do you sharpen these or something?”

“mmh?”

“they just grow like this? or d’you do something to make em sharp?”

Red looks down at Sans playing with his fingertip with a weird little smile. Same one as when he forgets to be mean about something, makes a buttless joke, or is just kinda having an okay day.

“i bite em,” he says shortly. “harder habit to kick than smokes, and i don’t even remember starting, so.” A soft huff. “figured you woulda noticed by now. remind me to invite you to my poker game round back.”

Oh. Well, now that he says it, Sans remembers seeing him _and_ his brother with their fingers in their mouths, worrying them absently between sharp teeth. Like, all the time. Sans diddles the tip with his blunter distal phalanx, watches the movie and enjoys the cuddle. It’s nice to have his theory confirmed that despite Red being a sentient dick joke with wheels and bells on, he’s not the ‘when in doubt, start groping’ type.

And it’s not like that with them, anyhow. It’s...not. Is it? It’s not. Red just has a vested interest in Sans for his own mysterious reasons. And if it was like that, he would have made a move or something by now. It’s not like he’s fucking shy.

“host guy ain’t bad looking for a human,” Red mutters, reclaiming his hand to diddle at his prosthetic tooth. It gets little bits of stuff stuck between the bone and the gold sometimes, and Red tends to pick at it even when nothing is. He licks it anyhow, then wipes his finger on the couch before putting his hand back. He doesn’t react when Sans reclaims it, nor does he seem to expect a response to his observation. Red doesn’t seem to expect anything of him, ever.

Sans knows why the bar’s on the ground, which is precisely where it should be. Red took a shortcut into Sans’s bedroom one day, found him half dusted in his own filth for no reason at all. There wasn’t much left in Sans capable of caring about things at that point, but his mind still filed away what he saw in Red’s eyes. Not what Sans was used to.

Red seemed to take it personally, but not….it wasn’t… eh. It was like he was annoyed. Vaguely offended, as if Sans was walking in front of him too slowly and he was in a hurry. Like Sans wasn’t literally dusting the hard way, as if Sans’s response to being unable to even just fucking _live_ was…proportionate. Understandable, yet unacceptable.

Nothing like the look in Tori’s eyes when she finally figured out that Sans was going to keep laughing her overtures off forever, always sliding to the side when it got a little too real for a second. Sans just nodded and shuffled away, relieved when the window shut on the smell of potentially forgotten pies burning. Grillby saw something in him at some point, maybe. His mistake. Fun while it lasted, but all Sans saw was a future full of missed shifts, dirty glasses, and uncooked books. Sans was nothing but honored to be his best man when he found someone. A real partner. Someone who can be relied on. Sans doesn’t miss the look he still gives him sometimes, same one he shot Sans at his wedding. Once in a while Sans gets drunk enough to remind him how much better off he is.

Red’s never looked at Sans like he expected better, because it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t. Sans just is whatever he is at any given moment. It’s as if Red is somehow immune to being disappointed. Probably not true, but he _seems_ like he is. And something in Sans vibes with that hardcore. It’s like Red doesn’t read into shit, either do or you don’t. The kind of guy you can ask for a strings-free cuddle on the couch, without having to be the kind of person who deserves the comfort of being held gently for no reason at all. It’s nice.

It takes him way too long to realize his mind’s doing the thing where Sans thinks he’s paying attention to something, but he’s actually thinking about a bunch of stuff he’d rather not instead. He makes a renewed commitment to applying himself, which he only does for things that do not matter. He grounds himself in the warm body cradling his own, a presence so sweet and strange it dilates his mind like alcohol.

Take a page out of Red’s book. Just _be,_ instead of being preoccupied with how bad he is at it.

Sans watches the plot of the movie crumble like overworked tinfoil and plays with pointy fingers, eventually becoming aware of a slow change in the way Red holds himself behind him. Doesn’t think much of it until he shifts for real and takes his hand back. Sans glances up at him. He’s up on his elbow and starting to slither away. He still seems to be watching the movie. Maybe.

“’m gonna sit back over there f’r a bit,” Red says, a barely-there hoarseness making Sans’s soul flutter for no particular reason. Sans only reaches back and touches his shirt, but Red stops leaving anyhow.

“why?” Sans asks before he gives himself a chance to think about it.

A few beads of Red’s sweat join forces to trickle downward.

“’cause you asked for a hug. not my boner pokin’ ya in the back.”

Red huffs through his sharp, humorless grin. He keeps his eyes on the screen.

Sans’s fingers close on cloth.

“you don’t have to.” He doesn’t mean to whisper it. That’s just how it comes out, and he’s expecting just about anything in response. Sans wouldn’t have pushed it this far if he didn’t already know Red’s just as much a mess as he is. A crass joke, maybe? A quick move to pin him, then shortcut to the other side of the room to laugh? An awkward declination seems likely, or an even crasser proposition to dissolve this not tense but not exactly comfortable atmosphere.

He’s not expecting Red’s eyes to tear themselves from the safety zone once more and fall on Sans’s mouth, of all places.

“you want a kiss to go with yer hug?”

The hoarseness rises to the top of Red’s already-rich voice like cream, sending a thrill down Sans’s spine that turns into movement. A quick flicker like a fish’s tail, a spiral that turns his body smoothly so he’s facing Red.

“yeah.” Sans lifts his chin like a challenge, like he’s daring him to drink wasabi through his nasal cavity.

Red just lies back down, the distinct absence of fuss knocking the wind out of Sans’s sails before they have a chance to billow free and flip the table. Which was the same thing that happened when he _did_ dare Red to drink wasabi through his nasal cavity, now he thinks about it. He just fucking did it. Then he burped the words “good shit” and blew it across the table to make Sans smell it.

Red’s body does its own flicker that ends with Sans’s head pillowed on his bent arm. Then he puts a hand on Sans’s hip to keep his pelvis where it is. Before Sans has a chance to process the implications of _th_ _at_ , or the ones in Red’s faintly puzzled smile…just like when he’s doing math in his head….

The press of Red’s sweaty maxilla to his makes it clear that Sans did not think this through. He had not pondered what it would actually _be_ _like_ if Red _kissed him_ _._ He failed to consider what happens when sharp teeth part and the gentlest touch Sans has ever felt explores the tight seam of his own flat teeth. Alphys would have been disappointed that Red’s tongue doesn’t do anything fanfictiony; it doesn’t seek or delve. It’s passively curious, idly tasting at him while Red’s calm exhale blows grape soda and hot bones into Sans’s skull.

Well. That can’t stand. Sans opens his mouth, and Red shows him not only how to mind the teeth, but demonstrates where he keeps all the softness Sans got a half-imagined glimpse of the day they met. He’s seen it a time or two since, but now he’s _feeling_ it, tasting it, chasing it further into the pliant sweetness of Red’s mouth.

Sans realizes he’s holding him, that he’s holding his breath too. He suck in a big gasp of air through his nasal cavity, abruptly and painfully aware of how hot and full his pelvis is. Tries to get closer, but Red’s still got him at shoulder and hip. It sparks something, though, and Red’s tongue presses into Sans. A ponderous energy like something massive underwater deciding to make its play, made fast and weightless by its environment. Slow swiping, massaging, then all soft again for Sans as he is unexpectedly moved to fanfictiony extremes.

Red has the absolute gall to be the best kisser Sans has ever...kissed. They’re kissing. Shit. Sans yanks his mouth away, gasping. Red gives it up without a fight.

“why do you smell like grape soda?” Sans pants breathlessly right into his face.

The points in Red’s hooded sockets are big as pumpkins. He doesn’t even blink.

“been eatin’ jolly ranchers outta my pocket for pas’ twelve hours or so,” he rumbles, not out of breath at all. “i _asked_ if you wanted some yesterday,” he adds defensively. “i only like the-”

 _The purple ones_ , right, Sans remembers as he cuts him off with a clack. He doesn’t hear anything, but he feels a gentle vibration in bone and magic as Red opens right up for him. Sans is already breathless again. Red’s hold is subtly softening, and Sans creeps closer. Red doesn’t do anything, just keeps on letting Sans kiss him as he glides toward him, bone sliding on threadbare cloth making it easy. And it is. So easy to just bring them together, show Red the consequences of his egregious oral talents.

The rest of their bodies meet like their mouths, and Red’s breath finally stutters hard. His hand tightens on Sans’s hip again….but he pulls them tight together instead of trying to keep them apart anymore.

It’s so quiet.

Just the increasingly indistinct _wub-wub_ of whatever’s happening on the screen behind him being drowned out by their ragged panting. The kind of fabric their shorts are made of is _slippery_. Feels slicker than lube, the friction so minimal Sans nearly wishes he wore jean shorts…or even pants. Something with a seam maybe; a zipper, rougher cloth or something, _anything_. That’s how he knows his mind’s gone. Flipped right out of his skull like a sizzling burger patty spatula-style by the unhurried, alternating press and give of Red’s tongue, his sharp mouth gone quiet and soft.

Might be the most surprising thing about Red, to Sans at least. That he _can_ be quiet, that he gets quiet on his own if you spend enough time around him. Sometimes listening, or thinking...or the best times when it’s neither. Just hooded sockets, a beer sweating harder than he is, neck craned slightly forward like a turtle about to fall asleep in the sun. Just a little lump on the couch, still and avid as he watches some weird show they found. Turns out that’s the Red Sans asked for a hug, the one who offered a kiss to go with it.

And that’s when Sans realizes not only that he _can_ come from this….he is absolutely going to. Thing is, without something to ground the sensation barreling toward him, he might actually just fly apart. Sans imagines his bones exploding to release the motes of weightless light he feels gathering in his body and soul, this superdense moment sucking in the whole universe like static made of fireflies.

Turns out slipping his hand down between them doesn’t break the spell after all. Just catalyzes it into something that makes the solidity of Red’s arm behind his neck go tight, makes the hand on his hip become another arm wrapped around him. Sans sucks in air and holds it, barely pressing with his fingers so Red knows how close he was, how little it’s taking. Sans can give him that much. Then the moment snaps, tips right over the edge where it promptly implodes.

Sans doesn’t stop kissing, he won’t. This is _his kiss._ Red _gave_ it to him and he _wants_ it. His mouth goes lax and sloppy anyhow, pleasure blasting through his body like an overcharged wire, just enough pressure like a housing to keep it impossibly contained. Red holds Sans together and kisses deeper against Sans’s clumsy tongue. He sucks in the air cycling raggedly through Sans’s skull hard and sudden like he just woke up. Literally stealing his breath, like he’s reminding Sans that it’s _his_ kiss, too.

Sans thought it would leave him empty, husked in its wake. Instead something sweet and heavy fills him to overflowing as his panting calms, even as he moves his suddenly cringing pelvis aside and gives Red all of his palm instead.

Red’s body curls up tighter but he won’t back away, refusing to put distance between them. Bones tremble in conflict, but his need finally breaks their kiss. He buries his face in Sans’s neck, his voice barely there in the breath that gushes out of him. It cracks right down the middle of his soft _oh_ anyways.

Red wraps around Sans and squeezes him, curling and squirming until Sans feels like a panting shipwreck in the arms of a tiny giant squid. It’s so good Sans tries his noodle-limbed best to reciprocate, but Sans is well and truly Got. Another squeeze is tight enough it makes Sans grunt softly, and Red shimmies so hard against his hand that Sans has to brace his elbow. Then Red’s hips freeze, and he lets out a faint cough. Sans doesn’t have to do anything then except firmly cradle the heartbeat of Red’s climax, experience the uniquely penetrating heat of synthetic fabric slowly becoming wet against his carpals.

Their bodies are so close he can feel each twitch of the tension unwinding from Red. He’s melting in his arms, against his palm...and Sans feels like he’s melting, too. Maybe they’ll merge into the same messy puddle to slip right through the cage of their own bones, leak down through the dirty grating of existence and finally escape. Finally just… get some rest. Together.

It’s a long time before Red finally heaves up on an elbow. His shaky inhale goes out calm and satisfied when Sans cracks open a socket and peers back into the strangeness of a world outside his own skull.

Red looks down at him like a ton of bricks, and Sans goes still.

Whatever’s in those loose orangey-red eyes is something so heavy, omnipresent, and inevitable that Sans failed to dodge it sometime already long past and gone. A slow-motion curveball bigger than the earth, zeroing in on it until it…somehow _became_ it. It’s just where Sans lives now. It just… _is_. Sans doesn’t dare name it, merely _feels_ it like barometric pressure surrounding him from every direction.

Including from inside.

“think ‘m gonna catch this nap before it catches me,” Red rumbles, sockets drooping in a sated way that makes the base of Sans’s spine tingle. He doesn’t let Sans break his gaze as he pulls a fluffy comforter from the back of the couch over them both in a single, smooth motion. Nor as he tucks it in tight all around them, until Sans is cradled front and back in inescapable softness.

Then he just….touches his face.

Red blinks down at Sans under his spiky paw like a fat, lazy cat that swatted a careless bird clean out of the air… and is about to just fucking _sit_ on it until it loses consciousness.

There’s more than one way to hunt.

Sans’s teeth part in awe. Or chagrin, he’s not really sure.

Red winks.

Then he _does_ just lay down on him. Unapologetic, shameless, and now smelling more like a sweaty guy who just came hard than mysteriously alluring grape candies, Red plops his face in the crook of Sans’s neck and lets out a soul-satisfied sigh. Sans tries to drum up some incredulity as he feels sleep take Red in a wave, bones loosening from the top down until Red’s a living deadweight. Even his snore is quiet tonight.

Sans stares at the deviously familiar fabric of his own couch from a foot away like it betrayed him. Sans isn’t a bird. A bird would've stood a chance. Red just made a nest on Sans’s couch, put Sans _in_ it, and went the hell to sleep on top of him like the absolute egg Sans is. That big feeling comes again in a hot wave, even without lurid scarlet eyes to burn it through Sans’s thick skull. Truth is, Sans doesn’t meet many people smarter than him. So. He doesn’t exactly have a fucking rubric for it, but that matters less than the fact that none of them have been _Red_.

Red, whose twelvepounder bowling ball of a skull pins Sans’s neck to a wad of blanket he’d already tucked supportively beneath it, his whuffling sleep-sounds pouring down inside Sans’s ribcage.

He feels disturbingly, thoroughly made love to.

 _Puma Man!! He flies like a moron!!_ tweedles faintly from behind him.

A secret smile Sans doesn’t know Red’s spied a time or two, to ruinous effect and great consequence, plays across his mouth. The one that only happens when Sans feels _sure_ no one’s looking.

Sans silently decides what he’s going to do about what just happened while Red starts sleeping off his hard work. Okay, so, that was a pretty flawless victory. On the plus side, he probably just got a lot easier to read. Whatever. Sans can count his small change and be glad he doesn’t own a watch in the morning, which is what he and Red both call whatever time they happen to regain consciousness.

Sans lets his sockets close, decides to do what he does best about having just been seduced like a dirtknuckle rube with the least counterable move of all: making Sans think it was all _his_ idea.

Nothing.


	2. Cuddles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Red doth protest too much, and delivers not quite enough.
> 
> [Foo Fighters – Big Me](https://youtu.be/pLdJQFTnZfA)

Okay, so.

Maybe Red has a problem.

He won’t even admit it to himself until well into the second hour of the nature walk ‘Russy blackmailed each and every one of them into two weeks ago. Sans’s shamelessly infodumping brother interrupts his explanation of the local fauna to aim his face at Red’s laden bulk puffing along doggedly behind him.

“YOU _DO_ REALIZE HE HAS LEGS CAPABLE OF LOCOMOTION?” ‘Russy asks with his brightest grin. “THEY’RE VERY SHORT, I KNOW. BUT I _ASSURE_ YOU THEY EXIST.”

“capable isn’t the same as willing,” Sans rumbles over his shoulder before Red can come up with some blustery excuse, much less put him down. ‘Russy does a fussy, but he backs off. Red’s face heats, but he still doesn’t unpiggy Sans from his back for the rest of the ordeal. Even Alphys is walking, although Undyne’s doing actual, literal laps around her. They both seem to be having fun.

Sans’s expression _looks_ self-satisfied over burgers at Grillby’s later, but Red sees that glint of annoyance in his reflection on the dark surface of a still-full ketchup bottle. Sans is mostly moving the food around without actually eating any. Red wants to feed him, but…. He feels embarrassed to do the same shit he always does. For no reason.

“gonna head home,” Red groans as he gets to his feet. The groaning’s mostly because Red actually picks Sans up from his lap before letting him go, then just stands there holding him standing-spoon style for a minute or two before he puts him down. He doesn’t want to, and Sans’s face gets a little more opaque. Red leans in to kiss him, pretends he doesn’t see it and that he doesn’t know why.

Red and Sans don’t really argue. And even when they do, they still don’t. That’s not the same as yelling at each other, which they do frequently. Well, Red does the yelling. Sans just hisses biting remarks like a bone snake, pulls a few pranks a little meaner than usual if he’s really feeling it, but mostly they just have fun with it. Makes the fucking better later.

Thing is. When Red says “head home.” He means the place where he keeps all his shit. Despite the collar around Sans’s neck, the place he keeps _his_ shit is not the same place Red keeps his.

Red drags Sans into his lap on movie nights, carries him around when they go out. Follows him around at their houses playing pinch-the-coccyx and tickle-the-ivories, in the kitchen, in the shower, and in bed. Keeps a hand on his hip on the rare occasions they walk together anywhere, throws an arm around his shoulders when he’s talking to someone else. Sometimes hard enough to make his voice wiggle. He plays it off well; no one else would have noticed. But Red sees the glints of annoyance behind his eyes later, in ketchup bottles and mirrors and every once in a while, aimed right at him.

Red picks the place tonight for their weekly outing, which includes them and their brothers, Undyne and Alphys, Stretch and Blue. Just the bare bones tonight, heh, and a few scales to balance it out. Crowd’s mostly ‘fell, which makes sense since this is Fellby’s place. _Fell_ by’s. Perverse son of a bitch he is, the neon sign outside the lanes actually fucking _says_ that.

Well. Red’s gonna control himself tonight. He lets Sans take his turns on his own, keeps his hands in his pockets. Sans gives him a few weird looks, and yeah, okay. So do the rest of them. Red just bites his tongue until he tastes magic, does his thing, goes to get their drinks and talks his shit. Doesn’t come up behind to play grabass when Sans’s trying to shoot the shit with Aaron, doesn’t snatch him up to hold like a captive audience when he throws his ceremonial gutterball and comes to plop down next to Red.

“hey. quiet tonight, huh?”

Red shudders when Sans’s smooth fingers slick down into his pocket and find his hand. Red’s face heats, reminded how long it’s been since Sans had a chance to initiate some affection.

“think you’re gettin’ hard a hearing, sweetheart,” Red blusters. “it’s loud as fell in here.”

Sans grunts knowingly and gives Red’s hand a squeeze, just stays there with him. Seems like ‘Russy changed the rules to ‘it’s only the next person’s turn when someone fails to get a strike.’ Blue’s up, so they should be good to chill for a while. Sans plays with his fingers, then brings their joined hands out for display. Red gets more flustered, and Sans takes it the wrong way. He lifts Red’s hand, and Red thinks he’s going to kiss it at first.

Red manages to figure out what Sans is up to and stop him just in time.

Can’t really hide his crimson skull, though. Nor his wince when he sees that pretty much everyone here who knows the score did in fact see, including the only one that matters. Edge is tipsy and trying not to snicker, but Red can see in his eyes he’s gonna hear it later. Then he turns and takes the ball from Blue, since apparently he’s up now.

Ugh.

Sans stopped pulling Red’s hand to the collar as soon as he was met with resistance, but now he takes his hand back entirely.

“this wouldn’t happen if you just told me this shit beforehand,” he says conversationally, as if Red isn’t mortified. Red clears thick magic in his skull and gets his face back under control.

“yeah, well. you didn’t have to tell me not to sit ya on the bar at grillby’s and fuck ya in front a dog n everyone, and i figured _that_ out,” Red mutters. He’s glad he glances at Sans’s expression as soon as he does, and softens his voice a little. “no, it ain’t a sex thing, and no, the other thing ain’t something that used to happen all the…” Red trails off and wipes his sweaty frontal bone. “well. not under usual circumstances. i can’t say no one ever tried.”

Sans laughs. He looks beautiful.

“well, guess that’s one thing that’s not different between ‘tale and ‘fell,” he chuckles wryly. “i’ve seen grillbz have to peel some folks apart more than once trying to give dirty dancing an x rating.” Sans hums thoughtfully. “sorry for, uh. tryin’ to change your diaper in front of everyone?” Sans tries, voice barely there under the noise. Red rubs his back, and Sans is the one who blushes this time.

“ain’t that, either,” Red says. “why don’t we head h-”

He cuts himself off, chagrined.

“back to your place,” he mutters quickly, but it’s too late.

Red put his foot right in the sore spot, from when Sans asked him why he didn’t just bring his shit over and _stay_ , or have Sans do the same. Red said _because it’d be a fucking disaster, dumbass_ , and Sans had been so shocked and hurt it’d painted his face like arterial spray, and Red said _see? this is **exactly** why…._and _._ Yeah. Things had gone downhill from there.

Red stares fixedly at his brother nailing his second turkey.

“you having second thoughts, pumpkin?” Sans simpers, already pretending Red’s slip didn’t happen. “gonna see if you c’n break your bro’s streak with the power of being an obnoxious fuckface?”

“no,” Red grunts quickly. The rest are used to Sans and Red disappearing from group activities at will and without fanfare. They prefer that, since it’s usually to fuck. Red silently decides that’s why this time, too. “let’s-”

“take off,” he finishes from Sans’s couch. Sans is already up and walking around to the kitchen, and Red hears him rattling the fridge door and rummaging inside. He comes back with a beer, and leans against the wall to nurse it and stare at Red.

“so _i_ fetch yer nasty sodypop all night at the lanes, and you don’t even bring me a beer, huh?” Red blusters.

“guess that’s how the cookie crumbles,” Sans grins, and takes a long pull. He blows Red one of his little improv tunes on the mouth of his bottle; how exactly Red’s never managed to figure out. Then he just raises the tops of his orbitals and waits.

“heh.” Red looks down for a long minute. Then he beckons Sans over to the couch. Sans sets his beer on a table and comes, but Red stops him when he’s about to sit. This is still pretty awkward, but… Not like he’d know what he’s asking, and those who’d know wouldn’t be able to explain it.

“if you want to. sometimes. you can. uh.” Red pulls Sans closer to him, takes a deep breath, then guides him into a hug. Very carefully, he brings it in until Red’s forehead touches Sans’s collar.

Red lets out his held breath long and shuddery as a wash of emotion fills him. It’s a deep animal comfort that bypasses all of Red’s higher functions, goes deeper than words or even thoughts. It _has_ to, in order to overcome Red’s instincts to defend himself at all cost. Well, from anyone who isn’t an immediate relative, which his body can sense, too. Especially when he’s hurt or incapacitated.

That’s what it’s _for_. Technically. What it _means_ is a lot more complex, but...again, hard to explain. Even if Red bites the big one first, this’ll stick around. Even those who find someone else later keep it on. Red’s never even heard of anyone actually taking theirs off, but he supposes it must have happened at _some_ point. The world’s too old for anything to be happening for the first time anymore. Red’s sure of it.

“there a reason you don’t touch it unless i make you?”

“well. cause it’s _yours._ ” Red chews on it to see if he can find something more accurate, but no dice. “i _made_ it, but...it’s _yours_.” Sans pulls away, and Red sighs again as he loses contact. Sans grins down at him, rubbing gentle fingertips between the processes on Red’s cervical vertebrae. Like he’s puzzled by something, and Red has a fluttery feeling it’s not about Red’s social mores. Sans huffs softly.

“ohh, _i_ get it now. i’m dr love, so it’s up ta _me_ to know when ya need a hit of the good stuff?”

Red gapes into Sans’s cheeky expression, the concern and care just behind those opaque eye lights. Then he loses it, yukking it up til he’s wheezing into Sans’s soft middle. Red caught himself a nice little fish alright. These flawless bones are fucking _filthy_.

“dr _love_ ,” he snickers with appreciative derision, then rolls his face up to look at him. All the steak and sizzle he could ever hope for.

“fuck yeah….when i get _that_ feeling...i need _sexual_ healing,” Red rumbles. He offers up his cheesiest leer on a platter, stroking Sans’s iliac crests suggestively. Sans shivers and gives him The Smirk, so Red lets his hands roam wild and free. Sans squeezes Red’s shoulders for a second, then chucks him under the chin.

“i was kinda expecting you to say something like, uh. makes you look weak?”

“oh,” Red grunts lightly, distracted by his rapidly increasing arousal. He _really_ hopes Sans will let him touch the collar while they do it, since it’s fresh on his mind. “don’t worry, no one’ll say shit to you. they know we’ll slit em a new one, but my bro’s gonna roast my fuckin’ chestnuts to ash ‘bout it later.”

Red’s dedicated groping falters, because Sans’s eyes flare hotly down at him like he found some shiny pebble he plans to secretly slip into his pocket. Touches Red’s scarred face like he’s never seen it before, like it’s…something good. Red flushes so hard he sweats.

“what?” he barks, flustered.

“nothin’,” Sans lies smoothly, tracing Red’s teeth with his thumb. “you need a spoonful of sugar, or d’you just want the medicine to go down?”

Well. _Now_ he’s speaking Red’s language. He grabs Sans around the hips with a rough chuckle, then stands up to lift him. He lets him go early, so his laugh stutters when so his back falls onto his mattress at the other end of Red’s shortcut. Sans giggles and wiggles, arching up into Red’s playful caresses.

Red kisses Sans breathless with practiced thoroughness, touches him all over til his magic thrums heatedly. He takes off his own clothes quick, Sans’s slower, then gets sidetracked with more kissing and ends up lying down on him. Red only rubs their skeleton business together lightly, but Sans moans and clutches at him, surprising Red as he shivers to completion. He was only intending to tease, but he forgets sometimes how easy Sans goes off unless he’s trying not to. He pulls back to whisper against Sans’s creased, sweaty browbone.

“didja come, tomatahpie?” Red knows the answer, but he likes hearing it anyways. The real question’s if he wants to go again.

“…yeah,” Sans manages breathily. “now fuck me.” He lifts his chin in challenge despite his closed sockets, says it just like he did that one time. When Red first gave him the collar, months ago. And Red had. Sans seemed to like it once he got into it, but hasn’t asked for it since. He sat real ginger the next day, too. Red hesitates.

“sweetheart, ya don’t have to-”

“you trying to give me a complex about it?” Sans interrupts, still panting softly. Then he cracks a socket open. Red grunts as the hazy point inside hits him, broad with a heady combo of satisfaction and renewed desire. Sans’s panting changes shape to amusement at whatever he sees on Red’s face, but his laugh is gentle. He takes Red’s hand and guides it to his throat.

“no one ever gave me one a these, either.” His voice falls to a purr. “turns out i wanted it anyhow.”

Red huffs with pleasure as his fingers close on leather, and it feels just as good as he hoped. He licks the fingers of his other hand and gets Sans ready, and eventually he lets go of the collar and kisses at it instead. Red muffles his warbling groan there as he joins their bodies slow, then pulls back to nuzzle Sans’s tense expression while he acclimates. He’s not sure why this is so much more intense for Sans than it is for Red, but…huh. Red’s magic is a tempest in teacup, and his minimum is still a lot. Can’t really help it, any more than he can prevent his thick middle from pushing out the front of his shirt. Sans ain’t exactly petite, but...well, Red can be careful. He'll get Sans where he wants to go, then take care of himself.

Sans hugs him too tight, whines and shivers just like before. Red reminds him how to relax, how to guide Red with his body so they can feel good at the same time. Problem is, _good_ ’s an understatement. A dizzying wave of tenderness fills Red, his magic thrumming with enough of it to make twenty more collars. He breathes through his need, stays still except for a hard shiver as he caresses smooth bones gently.

Quiet whispers breathed into each other, easing into it until Sans moans. Red can’t resist a taste of the sweetest sound he knows, lapping into half formed words tumbling out of Sans as they fall into sync. He’s already closer than Red expected, but Sans’s own erratic, overeager movements make him start whimpering again. Red leans up so he can concentrate on holding Sans back, to guide him there gently even if he’s frustrated.

But Sans _isn’t_ frustrated; he doesn’t even open his sockets. His trusting limbs melt eagerly into Red’s grip, enthusiastic compliance anticipating whatever Red has for him. Like he’s never doubted he’ll get exactly what he wants. The trembling awe on Sans’s face when Red gives it to him ignites Red’s pleasure into sudden urgency, and Sans cries out as their bodies collide.

Soft shouts form _yeah_ s to override Red’s apology with encouragement, with shaky curses, with _love you, pumpkin_ , and Red’s willpower can’t take that. Can’t take Sans yanking his hand back to the collar, nor the ragged noise Sans makes as he arches to climax so hard he lifts them both right off the bed a few inches.

Red’s intentions denature in the crucible of Sans’s exquisite heat, and Red’s pelvis tacks Sans back to the mattress with a sharp clack. The way Sans makes him feel goes deeper than word or thought, and there’s a galloping clatter of bones as he follows him right off the edge like a lemming. His throbbing growl breaks as pleasure bowls him over like a brace of pins, tumbling him apart helplessly until he coasts to a stop on Sans’s quivering bones.

Red kind of wants to stay like this forever, but he leans up and sees it’s already too much for Sans right now. Sans grimaces and holds his breath as Red eases them apart, and Red presses his own discarded shirt quickly between Sans’s femurs. Sans’s exhale creaks, but his frown smooths quickly when Red gathers him close and holds him.

Red cradles Sans’s skull, presses it to his shoulder as he slowly relaxes again. He strokes his occipital bone soothingly, but the intermittent shivering goes on for a while. Red dabs with the shirt, ‘accidentally’ brushes the mess with his fingers and takes a sneak peek. His afterglow curdles into something else, and a thin whisper bypasses his mind entirely to escape between his teeth.

“sweetheart….i’m too big for ya…”

Sans just quivers with lazy, sated laughter.

“mm…guess i’ll hafta get a shirt that says ‘size queen’ and see if i grow into it.”

Sans opens his sockets when no snarky answer presents itself. Red finally tears his gaze away from the little bit of Red and too much of Sans coating his fingers. Sans’s open, loose expression frosts over like a windowpane.

“starting to wonder when you got the weird idea that _i_ don’t know what i _want_ ,” Sans says in a dangerously light tone. “seems like-”

He doesn’t even get as far as touching the buckle before Red’s soul turns to liquid nitrogen. Just because he’s never heard of anyone doing it, doesn’t mean they _didn’t_. That they _couldn’t_. Must be written all over his face, because Sans cuts off whatever he was going to say abruptly as Red’s springloaded cigar guillotine. Apparently being too shitass scared to hide it is an automatic spare card. It’s a real shame Red doesn’t feel that way often enough to use it to his advantage. It’s not like he can fake it, either. Not like this, and not with him. Some things just gotta come from the boiling-at-196-degrees-below-zero heart.

Sans lifts himself up on unsteady limbs, and Red’s too gormless to stop him. But he just straddles Red before settling, the wet shirt pressed between them now. He looks down at Red, and his sigh weighs a thousand pounds, easy.

“seems like you started questioning my judgement around the same time i decided i wanted _you_ ,” he finishes quietly. Red’s face goes as hot as his soul is cold. Really got a whole temperature spectrum going on here. “guess i really can’t call you out on that particular brand of bullshit, huh?”

“it’s patented,” Red’s mouth babbles. “special interdimensional sans-brand bullshit, we all got it, often-imitated, never-duplicated, y’know, maybe we should add it to the menu for the-”

“me liking how it feels doesn’t bother _me_ ,” Sans interrupts. He taps Red’s chin with his forehead before leaning back up to _look_ some more. Turns out his _eyes_ weigh even more than his _sighs_. Red opens his mouth to explain he’s decided to become the world’s first skeleton poet specializing in dirty limericks, when Sans interrupts again. Or continues, Red’s not sure. “…so why does it bother _you_?”

Red’s staring at the wall now, breath gone all jerky and strange. Now he knows why Sans got on him like this, the fucker. No way out of here that doesn’t include Sans going right along for the ride. He’s all over him, knees holding his arms to his sides. No escape.

“…promised i’d never hurtcha,” Red chokes faintly. He squinches his sockets shut against Sans’s enigmatic huff, then shivers as he feels another one at the sensitive spot just under his acoustic meatus.

“mmm….yeah, i think i remember that.” Red holds his breath, but he can’t close his nonexistent ears against that insidious whisper. “here’s a juicy tidbit for the ‘dog machine. you promised you’d never hurt me... _while_ you were hurting me, just a little bit. did it exactly how i asked you, right when i was expecting it.” Another huff, and Sans’s whisper turns to a barely-shaped breath. “and it _did_ , just like you told me it would. and _i_ made you feel _so_ …fuckin’…. _good_ ….you didn’t even notice it made me come so hard i passed out for a second.” Red whimpers at the split second butterfly touch of Sans’s tongue-tip. “…heh. seems cracking out three in a row means it’s my union-mandated break time.”

If he says anything else, it’s drowned out by Red’s helpless moan as Sans deliberately presses down on the wad of cloth between their pelvises. No way he can be ready again this soon after what they just did, but the downright heroic effort his body makes to do it anyway causes every joint in his pelvis leak hot fluid at once, and Red feels the clammy shirt take the brunt. Sans growls and grinds the sore spot Red gave him down one more time, then leans up.

“look at me,” he says gently, irrefutably.

Red has to bite off a sob when he opens his sockets, can’t stop himself from hunching away from that disturbingly knowing gaze.

“maybe i _wanna_ be feeling it the next day, and the one after that,” Sans says evenly. He leans in to crowd him, words puffing out to tickle Red’s heated face. “maybe i wanna feel that way _all_ the time,” he purrs. Red can’t stop his sudden, indrawn breath as Sans reaches up to fondle is own collar by himself...for himself. He’s not talking about walking bowlegged anymore. Red’s soul shivers as it thaws, because he never considered…

Sans _can_ feel it all the time. He’s fucking _wearing_ it.

Red’s never worn a collar before, never given one. That didn’t mean he didn’t want to anyways, but it did apparently make him dumber than his own rock collection. Sans, manipulative son of a bitch he is, watches Red’s face journey and slowly embarks upon his own. Then he reaches down and takes Red’s hand again, brings it right on home.

“you touching it feels _good_ for me. you didn’t know that, but you knew me making you grab it in front of everyone….made me look bad or something?" Sans huffs in disbelief. "for some reason you care about my worthless rep more than yours, so you stopped me. is that why you won’t touch it on your own?”

“ _no_ , you _shit_!” Red croaks, keeping his gaze focused on the silver buckle as it blurs. “it’s what i fucking _toldja_ already! it don’t _belong_ to me.” Red’s breath hitches, and his sockets spill over as he literally and physically squirms. The internal conflict of holding the collar while trying to argue about this is too much. Sans would just ignore his tears, but Red’s too… something. He’s sick of Sans just letting shit go, but Red can’t stop holding on like a fucking idiot.

“lemme _go_ , dammit!” Red hiccups hypocritically.

“you first,” Sans says, cool as a cucumber. His fingers on Red’s are like feathers, barely touching him. He even took the weight off his pelvis.

Red sucks in too much air, then pushes it out with as much force as he can in a skull-splitting roar through grinding teeth, the agony of his unbearable conflict boiling out of him along with it. Sans isn’t holding him down, isn’t making him do anything but wallow in the reality of his own choices. Red screams again, legs marching in some weird, aimless dance to shove around the single blanket on the bare mattress.

And then….it’s just fucking _gone_ , and Red goes limp under the victorious, sadistic masochist he collared. He attempts vainly to get his shit together as he huffs and weeps, his weak heart overstuffed with his own merciless love. Or maybe it’s just getting smashed between a rock and a hard place, an irresistible force and an immovable object. The collar reminds him how he feels, and it rises up from inside him like an answer.

It’s bigger than he is.

Red’s promises broke him. He’s been lying to himself about this for way too long. He promised it _all_ , and now Sans it calling it in. Featherlight fingers caress his, literally _rubbing it in_ , and okay. Turns out it’s not all gone.

“yer a fuckin’ chuh-, _cheating-!_ , slimy-ass, whorefaced, _rotten_ crotch l-lil piece a _shit_!” Red sob-coughs, briefly drumming his heels like a toddler. But he still won’t pull his hand from between bone and magicked leather, and Sans knows he won’t.

“you knew it was broken when you bought it,” Sans purrs smugly. Then he leans in for the deathblow, pressing his forehead aggressively against Red’s until all he can see is the inside of Sans’s skull.

“and. so. did. _i_ ,” Sans hisses, filling Red’s blurry sockets with a look Red knows well from his old stomping ground. The one that means a kiss or a headbutt are equally likely.

“gimme what i paid for, pumpkin,” Sans whispers instead. “ _now_.”

Red’s chuffing goes wracking and silent. His grip goes to the back of the collar and he presses Sans against him, too tight to see each other anymore. After a while, he gets up. Red doesn’t let it or him go as he takes them to the shower. They both ignore the shirt getting rinsed down between them to swirl and squelch briefly before clogging the drain. Red drags it back with his toes and just stands on it. He turns his back to the vigorous spray and lets it blast his ass with cleanliness; he uses a soft cloth from the caddy over his reluctantly freed fingers to clean Sans’s pelvis.

He needs to protect him, and he is. He needs to take care of him like he promised...and he _is_. But just as deeply as he feels the truth of that, he knows that _safe_ somehow also means _away from Red_. He takes up too much space, makes a mess, breaks everything and hurts people. Gotta keep Sans close, yeah. Close as family, because that's what he is now. But Red ain't acting like it. Not in the...way he's... Sans grunts peevishly, and Red loosens his standing cuddle deathgrip. Sans won’t answer anything Red says to him, and Red won’t fucking let him go. He takes them back to bed and lies down with Sans on top of him, chin tucked over his skull in a way Red can no longer deny is nauseatingly possessive.

Only thing worse than snitch is a welch, and Red’s the biggest fucking welch there is.

Sans doesn’t budge. He goes to sleep instead.

In the morning, Red stares down at Sans still asleep, but magically clad in t-shirt and shorts now. He’s not sure how long he watches him breathe before his sockets finally open. But they do, and Red manages not to flinch as he sees the hazy white points inside focus on the mountain of Red’s belongings behind him. Clothing, books, posters, microwaves, magazines, rocks, pieces of paper, half-repaired bicycles, shoes, paintings, toys, bottles, bags of bottles, bottles of bags, comics, scrap metal, wood, toasters, cardboard boxes empty and full, cases of worthless coins and spoons, plastic bins full of sticks and grass, and a few things Red’s not entirely sure about. His fisted knuckles crack in his coat pockets, but he keeps his face neutral.

Every room in the house except the kitchen and Papyrus’s room now have a similar pile to this one, which reaches nearly to the ceiling.

“brought over my shit.” Red hates how his husked whisper shakes.

Sans yawns and sits up, wincing faintly as he puts weight on his pelvis. He rubs one socket, blinking the other indifferently. Red backpedals when he stands, but Sans just meanders around his trembling, hunched girth and pauses next to it. Them. Red and his egregious mountain of Sans-brand patented bullshit.

Sans’s hand darts in towards the bottom of the heap, and somehow unerringly pulls out a fake-satin negligee robe, the collar and sleeves trimmed with moth-eaten marabou feathers. Unhurriedly, he pulls it on over his shorts and t-shirt. Sans stretches and yawns some more, then saunters with exaggerated hip movements over to his doorway. Red has to shuffle back towards the bed to keep him in sight around the pile. Sans pauses with his back to him, puts a hand up high on the doorjamb. He turns to look back over his wrinkly pink shoulder at Red, whose shaking is becoming visible.

“ _my_ shit now, too.”

He smiles and winks.

“…. _sucker_ ,” Sans purrs fondly, then knocks on the doorjamb and goes downstairs. Red’s legs wait to give out until after he’s gone, and he leaves him alone to do whatever he needs to do right now. Red stays put instead of following him around the kitchen playing grabass, talking shit, and messing with everything. Now that that part’s over, Red actually thinks about how this room looked before. A bare mattress. A blanket. A few socks on the floor, a broken lamp, and four books stacked on their sides against the far wall.

The rich perfume of Sans’s excellent coffee fills the overstuffed house as it slowly becomes _theirs_.

Red just sits where he landed, which turned out to be the mattress, and stares at his pile of crap until Sans comes back. His shirt’s gone, but he’s still wearing the robe open over his shiny shorts like a tiny, effete boxer, the hem dragging behind him a foot or two. He’s got his head tilted back to guzzle from his mug, doesn’t even have to look to smoothly sidestep Red’s bullshit, then just keeps going until the other mug clinks gently against Red’s forehead. It’s hot as fuck, might be still boiling. He takes it, chugs it, then throws the mug on the floor and attempts to haul Sans into his lap.

Sans finishes with a slurp, and his mouth is on Red’s before his mug hits the floor. His searing tongue makes Red moan, and Sans slithers a rapid path down Red’s favorite nature trail. Red’s shorts are gone in one quick yank.

“oh, _fuck_ ,” Red gasps. Sans’s mouth is still wicked hot inside from the coffee, and he was already better at this than anyone else Red’s ever been with. Red actually comes from it, and not just sometimes. Every time. And right now in _record_ time, Red hunching down tense over him in the shadow of his mountain. His knees shake and press in, and Red sobs his surprised delight down at the top of Sans’s skull as he pops off like a bottle of champagne.

Sans leans back and wipes his mouth on his feathery sleeve with a wink. Then he crawls his lazy way on top, pushing Red onto his back as he covers him. His own shorts have miraculously vanished, and everything they contain is slightly wetter than it should be despite how ready to go he is. Red’s about to say something, but Sans’s knees slide on synthetic satin like butter, hitting the insides of Red’s femurs with a clack to spread them wide. He wonders why his bobbing feet feel so heavy, and realizes he’s still got his steeltoe boots on. And his coat.

“hmmm,” Sans sighs down at him, feather trim fluttering in his chicory-and-Red-scented breeze. “whatddaya get the skeleton that has _everything_?”

Red has to clear out his skull with a short, rough noise before he can make words happen.

“i dunno,” he tries. “what?”

“ _crazy_ laid,” Sans sighs contentedly, tilting his skull so his vertebrae pop, then does the other side. “you up for it?”

Red gapes up at him. Red’s one and done, but he doesn’t mind if Sans wants to fuck him before or after. It’s _Sans_ Red is worried about being up for it, and they both know it.

“you-,” Sans closes a socket and arches the other orbital high in warning, and Red’s voice dips out on him. There’s a quiet moment before he whispers, “’m always ready to go, sweetheart.” Sans hums contentedly, lies down on him and rubs them together nice and easy. Red grunts and tenses as the friction deepens, but Sans is always gentle when he takes him up on the ‘after’ option. He eases Red’s twitching legs back apart, keeps at it until Red’s taking it just fine.

“good, pumpkin?” Sans asks breathily.

“yeah.” Red takes a deep breath in, tilts his head back and relaxes. “yyyyeah,” he exhales slower, letting the low vibrato Sans loves out to play. Moans it for the hat trick when Sans gets energetic, and Red would never tell a soul Sans actually _does_ get regular exercise. He’s got a reputation to maintain. Red lets his hands slide over the fabric. It’s so slick, busy bones inside warm and thrumming with the vast amount of magic that holds Sans together. Reds arms tighten, deciding to help out with that.

“ _fuck_ , that’s it,” Sans pants against his skull, and Red decides to use his legs, too. He hears the sole of his boot catch on the robe somewhere and tear it, but he can fix it later. He can fix it, yeah...feels good to fix things, feels good to lie here and get fucked til his mind goes all soft and stupid. Red likes ‘after’, especially when he can just lie here and enjoy how it feels. Gets Red right back in touch with his inner lazy bastard.

Red’s breath sucks in and grunts out; Sans is is keeping it low-impact for both their sakes, but it’s really fast, and a lot, and he cracks his sockets open to assess the strained pleasure on his face. Sore, but he’s okay. His body’s trembling-tense inside the shackle of Red’s limbs, chin up, neck craned. He does that a lot when they fuck like this….and it suddenly occurs to Red’s dumb ass _why_ after all this time.

“sans,” gushes right out of Red like it does once in a blue moon, and Sans’s face crumples the rest of the way. He lets out the soft whine Red getting sweet on him causes, then a choked “c’mon,” as he sweats and struggles at the cusp.

Red doesn’t know or care if he’s asking Red or his own body, but Red crushes Sans against him and shoves his face into the collar, kisses it. The noise Sans makes when he does it is so fucking hot Red’s pretty sure he just squirted a little. Sans wrestles a hand down to slide under Red's ass, cups the back of Red’s skull with the other and presses hard with both. Then Sans jerks and shudders, his ragged moan heralding the seething heat of his climax. Red only realizes he's babbling words like "love" and "sans" and "please" when Sans starts shushing him gently, stroking and kissing his skull til he calms.

And stars, Sans is so sweet to him afterwards. He whispers things Red pretends are jokes the rest of the time between little kisses and getting them untangled downstairs, while Red just catches his breath and feels real mellow. He’d think it was the emotionally charged bullshit factor, but nope. Sans is always like this, wiping him down with a soft cloth he must’ve stuffed up his sleeve in the kitchen, kissing his knees idly while he unlaces his boots and gets rid of them. Red gets into his coat pocket and pulls out a blunt, lights it still on his back and sees if Sans has anything to say about it.

He just leans up on the heel of his hand is his spanking new, motheaten, and now torn in multiple spots robe, cheek touching his shoulder as he does that touching-Red’s-face thing some more. Right when it gets to the point where Red’s gonna say something disgusting or mean in an attempt dispel his increasing twitchiness as the fucked-stupid vibes recede, Sans lets out a soft chuckle. Also what he’s smoking kicks in, so that helps, too.

“now we fucked each other too raw to sit normal for a week, how bout we get outta here so we’re not tempted to make it a fortnight?” He sighs, tracing Red’s smoke- yellowed teeth and scarred features with his fingers as if he’s pretty or something. “’sides, i don’t wanna cook.” Sans is smart enough to save those kind of lies for the bedroom, so Red lets him get away with it sometimes. He takes a long pull on his fattie, grunts as a cinder winks out against bone, then blasts out a huge plume that Sans pretends to bite.

“nah,” Red rumbles hoarsely, voice all fucked out but the rest of him surprisingly energized. “i’ll make ya a goddamn frittata or something, ya needy bitch. let’s stay home.”


	3. Swingset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Red derails Sans's budding new career as a trellis.
> 
> [Belle and Sebastian - The Fox In The Snow](https://youtu.be/bKSI1idOUzM)

“hey there, sweet cheeks.”

Red’s ass is suddenly above Sans’s face, blocking the light filtering in through the perforated surface of the bench Sans has been lying under for...a while. Since the Judgement. Whatever. There might still be some rain pooled in the back of his skull from when he stopped bothering to shut his sockets.

He doesn’t answer, but Red doesn’t seem to expect him to. Sans is a little surprised to be found, but it always happens eventually. Wherever he ends up. At Grillby’s, off his face. In another city, waiting for a bus that never comes. Under a bench in a trash-choked lozenge of dirt that may have once been a tiny playground.

He’s pretty sure no one even realizes it’s here anymore. It’s the ass end of four lots owned by four different entities, each having put up a fence against this eyesore without ever claiming it. Just walled it off and turned their backs. No one wants responsibility for this mess.

No one ever feels fucking _responsible_ for anything, so why should Sans? He’s not even responsible for himself.

Red scratches an old scar on his knee, then sighs...fondly?

“so, my bro was asking me if there’s a way to make his not-stretchy pants as tight as the stretchy ones without splitting the ass when he hops,” Red rambles amiably. He sounds like he’s complaining, but Sans knows better at this point. “could probably put darts in above his trochanters, but….mm. have to put a closure all up the backs. he’d probably be into that though, now i think on it. zippers, maybe? heh. like how they do on them kinky stockings, sometimes….”

Red just kind of narrates his thoughts for a while. How various people are doing, what kinds of not much he’s been up to. Some show he started watching. Eventually he lies down on he bench and starts fucking around on his phone. Sans can see it’s one of those word puzzle games he’s always playing.

“how the hell is _bilk_ not a word?” Red’s mumbled outrage is soothingly familiar. Sans tries not to let it get to him. Empty inside has been working out pretty well for him so far. “me n papy used ta do that all the time. heh….” Red shifts around uncomfortably, then sits back up crosslegged. “rusty piece a shit...” Sans eventually figured out he meant the bench, but by then Red’s moved on to some gossip about “Fibz” (what he calls his Grillby) having a human lover (or something).

“what do they even _do_ , you think?” he natters, scrolling his phone instead of playing. “he’d just burn their junk off, right?” Red stops scrolling, and the sliver of expression Sans can see jolts with a sudden idea. His phone lowers, and he peers down at Sans through the bench. Shit. Here it comes.

_Sans needs to come home._

_He’s making himself sick._

_This isn’t good for him and he knows it._

“you think he lights their farts?” Red asks Sans wistfully.

Sans makes a hollow, wordless noise involuntarily.

“yeah, i know,” Red sighs. “i wish we could fart, too. how the hell can we _eat_ , but we can’t _fart_ , huh? thass how i _know_ life ain’t fuckin’ fair.” Red shakes his head like it’s a damn shame, then goes back to his phone. Well, until Sans makes another noise.

“i know you’re havin’ a rough one, sweetheart,” he says offhand, “but, uh. gotta say those comebacks are gonna need some workshopping ‘fore they’re ready for the floor show.” Red’s gaze sharpens on something below Sans’s waist.

“you got some some kinda grass things growing up through yer shoelace holes, baby,” Red growls, not unkindly. He means Sans’s sacral foramina. “want me to pluck em for ya?” Sans tossed his shorts along with the socks and slippers, he doesn’t even know where. Somewhere else. It’s springtime, and plants grow fucking fast here.

Sans thinks about time for the first time in a long time. He flinches gently at the angle of the shadows.

Red’s been here all day.

“d...don’ take it out on th’ wildlife,” Sans rasps, voice all rusty with dried rain and disuse. “c...can’t letcha take me home. what’ll they do without their trellis?”

“i ain’t tryin’ ta get you to go anywhere,” Red says slowly, to all appearances sincere. Then a hectic crimson flush tints what Sans can see of his face. “you, uh. need me to take off?” he asks after a silence that lasts a beat too long to be casual.

Shit.

Red….misses him. His presence reminds Sans that he is a person and not a part of the trash heap, and that burns like acid. But. To be a person who Red actually… _misses_? It doesn’t track. Sans can’t wrap his skull around it.

Red shifts in preparation to stand, because when Sans stays quiet for this long…

“i’ll see y-”

“plenty of worthless garbage to go around,” Sans interrupts quickly. “wouldn’t be fair ta hog it.”

When Sans lets his silence gets too big, Red decides whatever speculation that hurts him the most is what’s really going on. He defaults to worst case scenario, and in this case…it’s that Sans doesn’t want Red here. Sans doesn’t even know if that’s true or not, but turns out letting Red believe that hurts Sans more than the other option. Maybe he can fake it for a few minutes. Since he’s not actually asking Sans to do anything. And he hadn’t been before, either. Sans just up and opened his fat yap on his own steam.

Red is not Papyrus, who’s the only other person who’d care enough and be able to find Sans when it gets….this bad. Sans’s mind flinches guiltily away from acknowledging that this is a place he’d chosen knowing Papyrus wouldn’t really be _able_ to find him. Northwest lot’s a hospital, and that drowns out pretty much everything else. Especially drained like he’d been after, hiding in the trash and letting his magic gutter and fade. Nothing inside him but misery until that started to fade out, too.

Sans is so fucking faded, in fact, he’d been going along with his Papyrus-found-me script automatically. Have a sad not-argument, get hauled out of his nasty bolt-hole to be taken home, fed, and mildly chastised. Red’s not doing that, because...Red doesn’t do that.

Red’s not here on a search-and rescue mission. He’s here to hang out, and the degree to which Sans is able to participate in that would appear to be irrelevant. It’s been a long time since Sans let it get this bad. Not since…

His thoughts are repeating. He should ask Red how he found him, so he can duck him next time.

“you got any candy?” Sans finds himself asking instead. Red always has candy. He’s like a pumpkin pinata, but the kind with the pull strings. Not the kind you have to whack til it breaks. Sure enough, a tootsie roll pushes through the bench’s ugly grating and hits Sans in the forehead.

“thanks,” he replies dully. It still takes a few minutes to get his arms to move, but he finds it eventually. Red didn’t even peel it for him. What an inconsiderate dick. When Sans looks up, the inconsiderate dick is facedown on the bench, ogling him. Sans isn’t buying it. He knows what a skeleton that’s been under a bench in a tiny landfill looks like after a few days. Unfortunately.

“hey, it’s like i’m visiting you in human prison,” Red says, grinning. “which one a these holes you gonna slob my knob through?”

“i don’t think prison visitation involves glory holes, red,” Sans answers, still chewing. “that’s why it’s called _prison_.”

“you trying to say porn  _lied_ to me?” Red’s  corny,  affected  disappointment tugs at something in Sans he’s been starving and ignoring.  Acting like a person is calling it up to the surface .  It’s a swelling ache waking up in his seemingly hollow chest,  and he wishes it would go away .  Despite that, he still...doesn’t want  _Red_ to go away.

He should, though. It’d be best for everyone.

“ this is just like that time al finally told undy- pants that anime wasn’t real,”  Red continues gamely. He means  _his_ alphys and undyne. “i need a shock blanket and one of them cocoa packets. with  _marshmallows_ ,” Red  groans , rolling his face on the bench.  The passing grating makes h is  open  eye twinkle like a lambent, red-orange Betelgeuse.

Sans swallows, teeth finally (mostly) free of not-exactly-chocolate-flavor sticky-cement.

“you know you’re supposed to put those in liquid, right?”

Red gives him an offended look, but Sans spies another twinkle.

“why would ya ruin it by getting it wet?”

The ache in Sans cracks open a little. Talk about your open-ended questions. But right now...the warm glow he usually gets from this particular brand of Red’s bullshit feels like… bleeding. Hot human blood flowing over human fingers in an endless, vicious, disgusting cycle that never fucking ends. Sans can’t do anything about it, and no one cares anyways. It’s always someone else’s fault, someone else’s problem. Keep flaying away the convoluted tangles of justifications, and you’re left with the howling emptiness underneath. 

“ _I felt like it.”_

“ _ People  I don’t know don’t matter.” _

“ _I wanted to see what would happen.”_

“ _They deserve it.”_

“ _ It made me feel powerful .”  _

Sans closes his sockets, and lets out a pained, shuddering sigh. The exhaustion of his own helplessness pins his bones to the earth. It’s not like Sans actually does anything, anyways. Just some kind of innate thing with his magic, makes them understand what they did. Makes them _feel_ the full scope, breadth, and impact of their actions, and they change because of it. Unless they really don’t give a shit, in which case they just kinda fucking implode, explode, or melt or whatever. It gets a little gross sometimes, but Sans’s clothes are cheap and disposable. 

“why don’tcha take me home and find out?” Sans whispers, defeated at his own not-a-game.

Red has to help him get out in the end, since it turns out the clothes he didn’t throw away are slightly stuck to the ground, and he’s been still for however long. Joints all crusty, the magic in them faded with neglect and despair.  Red puts him on the bench, gives his femur a companionable pat. He’s seen plenty of folk in a lot worse shape than Sans right now.  Including Sans, but only once.

“hey. ‘m just gonna grab a few things, k?”

Sans nods. On the occasions that their brothers, or Alphys and Undyne, drag them out of their hole to go do something, sometimes Red disappears for a few minutes. They all know it’s because he found something he’s going to take home, and that he doesn’t want anyone around when he does that.

But now he just stands up, takes a brief look around. His left hand emerges from its pocket. Red barely waves it, but every single shard of nasty glass mixed in the gravel gets called up, darts inward, then abruptly melts into a glowing, boulderlike lump. It cools just as quickly and thunks to the ground. He leaves it where it fell, then turns to a pile of trash and dead vegetation.

Sans thought it was all plastic bags from the dinky dollar store store in the southwest lot, but Red pulls up uneven metal poles, a tangle of rusty chains. As soon as Sans registers it, the rust falls off like ugly snow. The poles angle and bend, flaking holes refuse, darts of cherry-red flowing across the metal as it…..assembles itself.

It’s a swingset.

The plastic bags fly up like a flock of startled pigeons, then shred apart so quickly Sans twitches. They weave themselves into cord, of all fucking things, then braid together into wide, flat straps. They’re seats to replace the rubber shit that was rotting off the rusty chains. Sans’s teeth part gently, watching what Red does when no one’s looking.

Red’s not trying to fix everything in the world.

He’s going along setting right what he can change right _now_ , ignoring what he can’t…and putting a few maybe’s into his phone to chew over later.

Sans can’t stop staring at the swingset. It wasn’t _fixable_ ; it was a pile of trash Red set his sights on. And he didn’t fix it. He basically fucking _made_ it, and Sans doesn’t have to try to know he couldn’t have done that himself. The combination of raw power from Red’s LV, along with the waste heat it puts off...that kind of control, even if it doesn’t hold a candle to his brother’s… Add that to his shortcuts and a few other knacks they keep quiet, and Sans is pretty sure there’s no one Red couldn’t take.

Sans knew Red was a murderer the moment he met him. A monster who killed monsters, just like most of the ones from his place. Sans knows, because about half of them have asked Sans for a visit by now, and almost everyone walked away after, too. Red was one of the first. He is also Sans, so very little peeling was necessary.

Pretty much everything came down to “Because I was scared.” Scared to lose something he couldn’t do without, scared of being hurt, scared to die. As far as reasons go, it’s not the worst one. “Other-Sans” had walked away from that hall as “Red”, but otherwise unchanged. At least on the surface. The rest hadn’t been any of Sans’s business until Red decided to make Sans his business.

Red could carve a path around the world as wide as a city, maybe take a week if he stopped for smokes. Instead he’s stuffing his house with trash, taking care of those he considers 'his people' in his own special ways, and cleaning up abandoned corners no one will ever see. Sans looks at the lump of glass again, unaware of his breath hitching. There are six just like that in his and Red’s basement. About half of the garbage Sans had (very) privately thought Red had for ‘no reason’ … also suddenly has one.

Maybe Red’s just trying to save what he can. If not today, then maybe some other time. He’s not in a hurry.

Justice…

But also.

 _Patience_.

Sans only realizes tears are streaming off his chin when Red turns to him, and the mellow interest there snaps to alarm so deep his sockets go blank. The board he was pulling up hits the ground with a clatter; Red touches Sans’s face, already kneeling at his side.

“what’d i do?” he whispers, rubbing at the tracks of Sans’s tears with his sharp, gentle thumb. A freshet flows right over it. Sans makes a strange, upsetting noise, can’t really...explain. Or talk. He wants to tell Red how funny it is that Sans is jealous of a swingset, but his teeth are chattering too hard...or maybe just too loud? He can’t hear anything else.

Red holds him for a while. It doesn’t get better.

“here, sweetheart,” Red says, voice thick and hoarse with sympathy. Sans smells one of Red’s cigars. “got somethin’ for ya. have a lil puff, okay?”

Sans just hiccups dazedly, and after a minute he hears Red take a deep breath. His teeth press Sans’s, and Red’s nasal cavity blows a hot stream of smoke into Sans’s skull.

“shotgun,” he explains softly. “just spit it out ‘f ya don’t want it.”

Sans sucks the smoke in greedily, Red’s words instantly thawing the concept of _wanting something_ in Sans’s frozen psyche. After the third hit, Red hands it to him. Just holds him while he sucks it like one of those creepy marsupial babies that lives with a tit in its mouth. Sans realizes something was ceaselessly carving him up inside as it falls down paralyzed, and he realizes distantly that this is one of Red’s Extras. No filler but the wrapper, and a pop of painkiller for when the deep gouges in Red’s upper body start barking hard and won’t let him sleep. Turns out about half of Sans’s stiffness was actually pain.

Sans makes a mute noise of protest when Red takes it back, sucks down a hearty helping himself, then pinches the cherry off and smushes it to ash.

“any more and yer gonna spend the next three days sleeping it off.” Sans doesn’t even flinch at the harsh truth of how long he’s been here as Red tucks the rest away for later. “still might if you don’t have a snack.”

“thass good shit,” Sans says mildly, then finally puts his poised fingers down. Not like Grillby’s, but it works quicker and takes less effort. Red gives him a little side-hug. Then he’s tapping something against Sans’s teeth, and Sans eats it. It’s one of those compressed whey bars Red gets from the convenience store, and it tastes better than usual. Sans still ignores the next one, decides to get off Red’s lap and check out the swings instead.

The patterns that used to be printed on the bags form new patterns on the seats of the swing. That seems really important for a hot minute, and Sans traces them with fingertips. Details are suddenly big and loud; everything else...the big stuff… seems less immediate. He grabs one of the poles and tries to wiggle it. He’s stronger than he looks, but it stays put. Looks like the poles go pretty far into the ground, past the gravel and into tight packed, clayey dirt. Sans turns around and sits on the swing, reaches up for the chains to stabilize his bare, dirty ass on the seat. Then he blinks up at Red looking down at him speculatively.

Red grins, grabs the chains above Sans’s hands, and lifts himself with a _hup_ sound. His dirty boots slither along Sans’s sides, and plush magic presses in as his delicate pelvis slots against Sans’s. He wiggles his ass until there’s room for both of them to sit. Red chugs across the ground with his short legs, then lifts his feet up. Sans lets out a strange little coo as the world stars revolving. Red’s chuckle blows around them in the wind of their own momentum. After a few minutes Sans realizes he let Red trick him into having fun.

“you’re an asshole,” Sans pants, folding his legs up since it seems like he just keeps sending them sideways.

“you’re on drugs,” Red giggles.

“yep,” Sans agrees easily. “uh, thanks.” After a minute, the big stuff decides to press its sweaty ass against Sans’s blunted mind. Feels less heavy when he's in motion. He squints at Red’s face, only a foot or two away from his own. “did someone...send you?”

“told ‘em i knew where you were at,” Red says, his gaze sliding away. Even with the spinning in San’s skull, he can parse that.

“were you…worried about me?” A hectic crimson flush floods the front of Red’s skull. When he darts a look at Sans’s expression, it deepens.

“yeah,” he says eventually, short and gruff. Then he frantically catches Sans’s back and skids the swing to a halt, because Sans lets go completely to pull away the torn plastic sheeting he’d shoved in between his neck and the collar. Takes both hands, but Red doesn't try to help. Just holds him while he does it, and it comes free eventually.

Sans shudders and melts forward, leaning against Red. He’s here, but suddenly he feels a lot more _here_. Sans drops the sheeting and wraps his arms around him, awkwardly pulling until Red’s forehead touches the collar.

They’re still and quiet for a few minutes.

“we should go to grillby’s,” Sans mumbles after a while.

“might have to find you some pants for that...”

Oh. Right.

“too much work,” Sans sighs fervently. “think i’m all worked out.”

Red’s arms tighten, and Sans feels a tiny shiver come up from somewhere inside him.

“you can tell em _no_ , sweetheart,” he whispers tightly into Sans’s neck.

Humans ask for monster justice because they’ve heard you can go free after. That unfortunately increases the incidences of the ones who really don’t give a shit. They think that ‘tale monsters are credulous little marshmallows they can con with crocodile tears and a few lines of cutesy bullshit. The ones who think they’re smart, that they’ll always get away with it, since they always have. They don't.

The ones who have reasons like desperate, defense, or _scared_ ….are also understandably scared of having heard about half of the humans die. Almost no one knows what really goes down. They come up with some pretty gonzo theories about what it entails, but it’s just Sans.

He’s got no idea why some humans are allowed to ask, or how it’s arranged with human structures and institutions. Toriel deals with all that, and that’s who usually asks him. He tells himself that’s why he never says no, but it’s more complicated than that.

Neither Stretch nor Red will do it, although Sans figures they probably can. That’s part of it. But more likely it’s the fact that once in a blue moon….the human shaking to their boots in front of him didn’t do jack fucking shit. And Sans has a pretty good idea what would have happened to them otherwise.

“i know,” Sans whispers back. Then he wiggles, and Red lifts himself back up quickly. Turns and goes over to the lump of glass and sticks it in his phone. Guess the basement’s getting lucky lump number seven. Sans manages to stand eventually, meanders over to where Red is. Looks like he’s thinking about what else he can salvage from this mess.

Sans touches his arm to snap him out of it. Then he looks back at the swings.

“you think kids’ll use that?” he asks without thinking.

Red frowns at him strangely.

“ain’t no kids here. don’t think anyone can get in anyhow.”

Sans stares at the swingset.

“…yeah.”

Red takes them home.

The next time Sans goes out the door of the house, which is admittedly a week later, the swingset’s in their front yard.


	4. Cold Mornings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Mountain Goats – First Few Desperate Hours](https://youtu.be/dlyKaz8jUi4)

Sans has probably been up for a little while, but he has every intention of his current state being a temporary one.

He doesn’t remember waking, so he mostly likely had one of his bad dreams. Further evidence: he’s got Red’s hand tight on the collar, his thumb stroking over a fine thread of scar absently. Red’s still snoring away beneath him, blankets tucked in all around them on their sleepin’ couch. Sans wriggles a foot that lost its sock back under the covers, resenting that he’s lucid enough to notice that it’s kinda cold.

Then a phone goes off. It’s Sans’s nervous flinch more than the noise that wakes Red. And it’s Stretch messaging Red, of all people. Sans knows because he’s had it set to the noise Stretch made when Red jumpscared out of his pantry a while back, the same yelp duplicated and autotuned into the first two bars of _I’m a Little Teapot_ like dogs barking a gyftmas carol.

Sans indifferently surfs Red’s growling, shifting form as the unexpected love of his life digs irritably for the offending device, trying to guide his own mind back to the sleepytime path. He remembers his own phone is both off and elsewhere, which makes that a little easier. Until Red stops wriggling and starts talking instead.

“we got a job, sweetheart,” Red informs him.

“yeah?” Sans drawls. “are we gonna rub out super mario and all his goombas?”

Sans sobers when Red doesn’t giggle or bitch, just turns his phone screen toward Sans. He suspects what he’ll see there before it finishes. Just two short words that speak volumes. A plea.

[slumber party]

Sans sighs in acknowledgement, but takes another minute or so to build up warmth with cuddles and nuzzles. Red’s tender, uncomplaining acceptance of them tells Sans he’s worried, so he ends it sooner than he’d prefer. Then he heaves up and gets the stuff together. It’s their turn to be heroes.

As much as anyone named Sans ever is, anyway.

And, yeah. About 30 seconds after they get there, Red and Edge are already at the point where they don’t bother taking turns while speaking. They just holler right on top of each other. Edge’s shrillness and Red’s grating blend into an unholy cacophony not unlike a bandsaw fucking a woodchipper. There’s something burned lying blackened and damp in the sink, and everything that’s usually in the kitchen cupboards is arranged very neatly in rows on the floor.

Stretch is looking at the wall like it has mysterious revelations for him, and Sans knows that Up All Night look. Stretch is barreling right towards one of his Weekend At Bernie’s weeks if he doesn’t get some rest soon, and Edge is too high on his own sleep-deprived anxiety to see the signs.

The third time Sans offers a _hey_ , Stretch shakes himself and looks over.

“smoke break?” Sans gestures instead of adding to the noise. Stretch answers quickly, likewise, and affirmatively. They don’t have long to wait before an opportune moment presents itself. Red starts shoving his brother towards the stairs, Edge accidentally kicks a cup, and Sans and Stretch are both on the porch in a blink.

Sans has to brush frost off his chair; Stretch doesn’t bother. Skeletons are quite resilient to extremes of temperature, and this isn’t anywhere near cold enough to send either of them shivering. They still feel it, though, and Stretch pops back in quick for a blanket. He unsticks his chair from the porch and drags it close enough their knees touch.

“...watch it, this thing looks flammable,” Sans mutters as he holds the lighter away, secretly pleased as Stretch tucks the blanket around both of their lower halves. Sans gives him the stinkeye through the smoke as he slips his feet out of his massive slippers and tucks them under Sans’s ass, but Sans just drags deep and returns the favor.

They watch the sun rise together, puffing and passing.

“why is he so fucking _spoiled_?” Stretch blurts eventually in a plume of breath-steam and smoke combined. It’s nearly opaque, much like this situation...for now. “how did red even manage it, where they were from?”

Sans uses the cloud’s passage to obscure the sudden lift of his browbones, then reaches through it for the fragrant stick of combustible good times. It’s Stretch’s shit, which is completely different than Red’s shit, and has its own charms and pitfalls.

One easy answer is that Red trying his best at _anything_ is a force to be reckoned with. Another is pointing out that fancy clothes don’t make washing blood out of them any easier. A third would be, well, so is Stretch...and Papyrus too, if he’s honest. Luckily, Sans is not honest.

When it comes to answers, Sans is much more in the _getting_ business than the giving.

“he’s asking you to spoil him, huh?” Stretch’s angry grin flags as Sans nods sagely and sarcastically. “yeah, that explains the teacups on the floor.”

Stretch sags a bit. “well, no.” Then he straightens. “he was walking me through the entire kitchen, showing me all the things _wrong_ with it! like...i don’t know, crazy bullshit! some crumbs in a drawer. one crumb!!”

“he say it was your fault it was there?”

“well...no?” Stretch pouts. “he just...showed me it was there? he was mad i didn’t...i don’t know!!” He lets out a frustrated growl, voice still smoother than any of theirs. Sweet as honey, thick with buried self-loathing that puts him on the defensive before he even listens. “shit like that doesn’t _matter_!!” And there it is. What sent Edge over the moon, most likely. “a drawer just…holds things, it’s not like it was _broken_!!”

Stretch shrieks in uncharacteristic frustration and throws the joint into the backyard, where it hisses out in a leftover, dirty-looking snowbank. Then his face falls into horrified guilt, and he stares at Sans helplessly.

“how bout i make us some coffee?” Sans offers, unflapped. Stretch retrieves his feet from under Sans’s ass, then curls up until his face is hidden against his knees.

Sans sighs. “tea w’ honey?”

“thanks,” Stretch husks out, sounding physically, mentally, and existentially exhausted. Sans knows how that one goes, and he takes a step. Then he steps around a few plates, the broken cup, selects some unbroken cups and puts the kettle on.

Inspiration strikes to check a drawer still pulled halfway out. It’s full of carefully organized silverware. And a crumpled wrapper that failed to contain a half-eaten granola bar, exploded honey-coated oats impressively entangled with the dinnerware in each neat slot. Sans smiles gently. He’s got about 47 of those at home in the same state, each of them sealed in a ziploc baggie and rolled like drugs so they fit into the plastic bin in the pantry. All of them about the same amount of half-eaten. Now he knows where Red gets them, probably. He hopes.

He’s sure Edge _knows_ Stretch didn’t leave it there on purpose. Even Stretch admitted he hadn’t been blamed. Just set it down for a second, thought of something else, and that’s where it ended up. Edge tends to think of pointing out other people’s errors as ‘helpful’, and he does not always couch it in the most pleasant of terms. It may have presented an opportunity for Edge to explain his “systems” once again, and that...tends to go poorly between them. Especially on no sleep til brooklyn.

He wonders if Stretch realizes Edge has the same forgetfulness buried under a mountain of “systems”. Checking and re-checking, everything exactly where he memorized as its ‘spot’. He has to _know_. He has to _make sure_. Because if he _doesn’t_ …if he isn’t _vigilant_ …his brother could die. He could die. Or worse. There’s been Fell monsters who didn’t walk away from their meeting with Sans, mostly the ones that didn’t choose to come.

Edge hearing from the monster he collared that how he keeps them safe “doesn’t matter” probably didn’t sit well. Less well than usual, because it’s been so long since Edge slept that Stretch decided to call in the cavalry. Sans can hear Edge weeping under the bathroom fan’s noise while his brother’s steady rumble explains something.

Ugh. He’s already thinking too much. Sans’s _mind_ is a morning person, and he resents the shit out of it. This is why Sans doesn’t do mornings if he can avoid it, not anymore. Sleeps right through the whole mess and calls whenever he wakes up ‘morning’.

Sans sighs sadly and closes the drawer. Then he finishes making the fucking tea, leaving two inches at the top for the honey in Stretch’s mug.

Back outside, Stretch unassumes the fetal position, they both resume the feet-ass position, and Stretch re-tucks the blanket in return for a mug of hot honey. Stretch jumps at the agonized howl of hot water juddering through chilled pipes, much louder outside than inside. He lights another joint.

“why does he always put him in the shower?” he exhales.

Sans feels his browbone lift again on its own before he settles it back down. Stretch isn’t looking at him. Good. He doesn’t want to make him feel bad for not noticing excruciatingly obvious things for the four millionth time. Not like Sans can talk, but yeah. Being a Judge fucking sucks. Stretch has even more loopholes in his mind that keep him from understanding shit than Sans does, and that’s saying something.

He’s judging, sure, but still pretty sympathetic. Sans sees way too much, and thinks about it too hard and too long. It just gives Sans the dull dreads, although...to be fair, those did almost kill him more than once. But it’s a slow, creeping thing, a weight that just gets heavier with time, or water slowly getting hotter until it’s boiling.

Stretch has the same perception, but doesn’t react the same. Sans has seen how he avoids looking people in the eyes, even when he seems like he is. He’s seen the flinch when he forgets and does it anyhow, like he touched something hot. Sans has watched the jitters come on, Stretch hiding his hands until he finally excuses himself for a ciggie.

It reminds Sans of Papyrus’s electricity maze puzzle, which has gone through quite a few permutations and has many different settings. Stretch sees as much as Sans or Red, but he gets a nasty little zap to go along with his insights. So he’s trained his mind along the path he can walk without getting zapped.

Sans can respect that, but it does make Stretch a little hard to communicate with. His blinkers-on defense mechanism leads him to say stuff that’s mean or callous, because it hides the obvious shit from him, too. If there an _it_ to be stepped in, Stretch’s foot heads there like a magnet. Sans is still impressed he and Edge’s relationship is as functional as it is, but they still needs folks to run interference sometimes.

That’s where brothers and brother-adjacent folks come in. He knows they call Blue sometimes too, but much like Papyrus, he’s more of a…specialist. Besides, Sans and Red will come any time, day or night…or the worst time of all. Wee hours of the morning, like now. Red drains the piss and vinegar out of his brother with his own patented methods, and Sans, well. He’s got his reasons.

One of them is scientific curiosity, because boy fuckin’ howdy, he’d never have the energy in a million _years_ to go at it like these two do. Even got Red to admit the same, and he’s got more joie de vivre as a rule than Sans does. He finds their situation…interesting. Sans doesn’t have a nose, but for such a private person, he’s sure good at sticking his in other people’s business. And hot damn, do people ever seem to love giving Sans the tea. Stretch is a tougher nut, but nothing gets information out of someone quite like offering some.

“well.” Sans exhales explosively, doesn’t cough. “i think it’s just part of the routine.”

Stretch doesn’t get Sans’s gist, so he continues.

“some kinda routine they had before. edge probably got _stuff_ on him no matter when the last time he took a shower was, right?” He’s getting there. Sans helps a little more. “puts him in that, uh. mindset. fight’s over, they’re home and patched up. whatever the problem, it got _solved_. time to get some rest.”

“he’s manipulating him?”

It’s a loaded question with a pointless answer. Sans shrugs.

“red’s got his bro’s bypass codes, same as your bro’s got yours.”

Stretch blushes, glancing surreptitiously at Sans for hints. But Sans doesn’t give it up anywhere as easy as most.

A lot of them assume Sans and Blue don’t like each other. Nothing could be further from the truth, it’s just. They’re a little too much alike. They don’t have too much to say in groups, but it’s not like they avoid it. They seek each other out when they...need each other. They have their own relationship, on their own terms. Their own reasons.

“speaking of which,” he drawls patiently, “how about you by- _pass_ that on over, if you’re not gonna puff?”

Stretch’s hooded sockets narrow in appreciation at the pun, but he still makes a show of puff-puffing before he passes. Sans doesn’t mind. He’s not in a hurry. He takes a nice long drag, then passes back and bums one of Stretch’s less-potent ciggies as it finally kicks in. Pulls out a bottle of ketchup to go with the tea, since all that bitter smoke could use some other flavors to mellow it out.

Sans loves ketchup. No matter how bad it gets, he can always _taste_ it. Stretch pulls out one of those weird squeezy bottles of imported honey he’s been on lately, because apparently two inches ain’t quite enough to satisfy. Maybe they can start a size queen club.

Different strokes for different folks, but sometimes they’re petting in the same direction. Heh.

“hey. remember that time you were dumb enough to waste a dare on red snorting wasabi?” Stretch says, passing the ass end of the joint for Sans to finish. Okay, so. Maybe daring someone who guzzles mustard like it’s ketchup (and is also Sans) to snort something that is essentially superpowered mustard had not been one of Sans’s most ingenious pranks.

“nope,” Sans lies gleefully. “when was that?”

Sans likes the story, and it helps Stretch to tell it. It’s the kind of lie where everyone wins. Indeed, Stretch’s expression eases a skosh from that drawn, haggard look as he speaks. Alphys says it reminds her of when fleshy monsters get migraines or seizures. Auras or whatever. Sans doesn’t care if he’s pushing or pulling, as long as he keeps Stretch from the edge. And who knows, maybe guide him a little closer back to Edge. Heh.

Stretch pauses and grimaces when Sans flips the roach between his teeth, then extinguishes and swallows it with a short glug of tea, but otherwise Sans lets him go on uninterrupted. He finishes the tale with a sigh, then gets all question-y again. Brat.

“how do you handle it?”

“handle what?” Sans inhales, then tosses his spent ciggie in the yard.

“you know, handle….him! red!”

“hey, now. my foreplay techniques are patented. can’t just let em go without a finder’s fee, say, 500 g?” Stretch looks mildly irritated by his own short giggle, but doesn’t let it go.

“don’t you ever worry he’s gonna….i dunno. eat all your fingers n toes, wear your pelvis for a hat? s’ how he looks at you.”

Okay, Sans can’t handle _that_ high. Stretch has to take his mug from weak phalanges as he slurms around, moaning and heaving with hilarity until he finally slumps and wipes his sockets on the blanket.

“oh _shit_ ,” Sans wheezes. “you sure got him pegged alright. hoo….” He takes his mug back amiably. “guess if you see red wearin’ a pelvis hat, you’ll know it’s time ta pour one out for me.” He takes a sip of his cooling tea, a lot better with some extra flavor (and makes a mental note to ask Red if he’s capable of finding a hat made to look like a pelvis, or possibly sew one). Helps wash down the bitter taste of Stretch not letting whatever this is go.

“but…seriously? it doesn’t bother you that him and papyrus don’t, um…?”

Sans stares blankly. “don’t what?”

Stretch vibrates with discomfort, even though he’s the one who brought it up. That’s pretty on brand for him.

“...get along!” he squeaks finally, then blushes and hunches.

Sans just gapes at him, dotted lines and geometric figures churning in his skull as he attempts to put together how Stretch came to _that_ cockamamie conclusion. “and he calls him that thing,” Stretch adds, his eyes sliding away.

“’r _u_ ssy?” Sans chortles. One of the more distant cousins had claimed “Rus”, and Sans is absolutely certain only _his_ brother could ever pull off “Russy”. Even without saying it like Red does about half the time, so it rhymes with “pussy.”

Papyrus think it’s hilarious. It also gives him an excuse to engage in his number one hobby, the Pettiness Olympics. Lots of fascinating spaghetti parties served in steam table pans, over which Red makes several extra dick jokes, in return for which Papyrus asks about Red’s “bone pills”, and...well. It just sort of goes on like that infinitely.

Red has trouble with a lot of shit, but that’s a kind of relationship he knows how to have. Papyrus can inspire confidence in _anyone_ , and Sans will never stop loving him for that.

If he goes too far or if Papyrus is _really_ pissed, he just brings up the time only Pap’s quick thinking (and healing) had prevented Red from dying in a fight with a squirrel over a broken toaster on the literal inside of a garbage can. And if Red bitches about it to Sans, which he invariably does, he just reminds him that if he doesn’t like hearing it, maybe he should try doing more shit he can actually live down. Then they have sex. Everyone wins.

“they fuckin’ _love_ each other, dude,” Sans informs Stretch with the gentle sincerity he usually saves for his own brother. “even _me_ n red didn’t get along like that til we started, uh...” Sans makes the universally understood jerking off/dice rolling hand motion. “pretty sure that’s why paps still lives with us. them getting along, i mean, not us getting it on...heh." Sans dials it back with a short noise. "he's not home too much, but. he lives there as far as paperwork’s concerned, at least.”

Stretch does not take this revelation well. It’s what always happens when Sans actually tries to help, and mostly why he usually does not.

“you really have everyone figured out, huh? must be nice.”

That’s actually less petulant than Sans expected, considering how far from ‘at his best’ Stretch is right now.

“not even a little,” Sans admits freely. It’s the bulk of why he’s here, to get the tea. And maybe just a dash of actually giving shit, for flavor. Nothing wrong with some flavor.

“oh, really?” Stretch finishes and tosses his mug into the yard for style points. “then…..give me an example of something that continues to mystify you.”

If Stretch thinks this is how to “win” this conversation, he’s got another thing coming. Kid always tries to win everything, even if it’s not always obvious. He’s just _that_ scared to lose…and always feels like he already has, even if he only just walked in the door. Sans’d bet even he couldn’t tell you what he lost, just that he did. Because he feels like losing is just who he _is_.

Blue knows he shit the bed on that count. They all did, in their own ways. It’s why...well. It’s a lot of whys. But Stretch...this Papyrus…most of his missteps are because he’s trying too _hard_. It’s why Sans’s heart always goes out to him. He’s not even close to a bad person, even at his worst. And most of the time, he’s a fucking sweetheart. Excited and eager behind the sleepy exterior, smart as a whip when he’s not making maximum effort to be as stupid as possible.

It’s why Sans actually gives him one of many honest answers.

“guess i don’t really get why red always wants _me_ along for this,” Sans chuckles wryly. “it’s not like i do anything.”

Sans blinks in surprise at Stretch’s comically astonished, high as hell face. He isn’t used to this look from the other direction. The one that says Sans is the one missing something painfully obvious.

“you don’t have to _do_ anything,” Stretch says slowly, frowning harder than he would if he wasn’t stoned. “you just have to be there.”

Sans’s own snort startles him. Okay, yeah, so. Stretch isn’t stoned alooone. Heh.

“like, what, in the new age sense? don’t think i’m too good at that, either. it’s not like i….”

“you mellow it out,” Stretch not-exactly interrupts. Then he starts gesturing. “you make it...seem...not so much?” He looks like he’s fluffing an invisible pillow.

Sans winks. “fashion sense like mine c’n make anything seem less important.”

Stretch sighs, shakes his skull in frustration. “no! i mean, it seems like everything will be _okay_ if you’re there. even right now! even when _nothing_ is okay, you make it feel like it’s _going_ to be!”

Sans’s teeth part gently.

“and you’re really good at sleeping!” There’s more gesturing now. “you are literally the _best_ at sleeping!! even _i_ can’t sleep like you, and i go into medical comas every six months!! one time edge said he should take _lessons_ from y….uh, are you okay, dude?”

“’m fine,” Sans says too-quick and too-tight, rubbing his sleeve-wrapped fist across his teeth self-consciously. “just, uh….” He clears thickening magic in his skull with a short, sharp noise. “just really high, i guess.”

“sorry,” Stretch says quietly. Sans winces, tries to smooth over his own unaccustomed awkwardness. When he looks back up, Stretch’s crushed expression turns the joke stillborn on his tongue.

“why is it so _hard_ all the time?” Stretch whispers into the middle distance.

Might have been rhetorical, but Sans is feeling stupid enough to answer him for a change. And not with something about 4 hours and calling a doctor.

“cause you’re both trying to _win_ ,” he says simply. “and for some reason...you think one of you has to _lose_ for that to happen.” He isn’t listening. Of course not. It’s why Sans doesn’t-

“i thought…. i really thought _this_ would...” Stretch touches his collar, face sagging with confusion and sadness. Sans touches his own a lot, too. Feels good to know you’re loved, but you actually also have to _try_. The irony’s starting to get to him a little, but his collar buckle’s silver. It’s funny.

“that ain’t a silver bullet, honey,” Sans tries not to chortle as the rims of Stretch’s sockets get damp.

“then what’s it _for_?”

Sans digs deep to control himself, lets out his giggle as a slow hiss instead. He doesn’t _want_ to laugh about it, and there’s not much room in here for anyone else’s coping mechanisms right now.

“it’s _for_ edgeykins not _killing_ you by accident when you decide to shortcut into his fuckin’ room with two cups a coffee-flavored whipped cream,” he manages in short, jerky bits.

Ahh, shit. Now he’s done it. Stretch is curled up again. Sans feels the weight of his own bullshit like an albatross around his neck. He's absolutely quackers.

“hey….” He breathes deep until the laughing fit passes, but has to repeat himself before Stretch will look at him. Sans takes one more deep breath and leans forward. Hopes to all the little stars he’ll fucking _listen_ for a change, because Sans is actually trying. He’s _trying,_ goddammit.

“you have to-” a spark goes off in Sans’s mind, too bright to ignore and at the last second he changes _try_ to, “-be _brave_ ,” he says instead. “take a chance and _listen_ , instead of...deciding in your head it’s all your fault. sometimes things that ain’t your fault…are important anyways. not needing you to fix em. it’s not about _fixing_ , it's just…important,” he finishes self-consciously, then rubs his fist across his teeth again.

Stretch is staring at him. Holy shit. He gets it.

“he wants me to know what’s important to _him_ ,” he says slow and careful, like the words are drops of a caustic catalyst being added to a solution. "just....to _know_. him."

Sans nods slow like he’s trying not to set off a bomb.

“well...” Stretch’s mouth twitches into a pout. “he’s not very _nice_ about it.”

If making Sans lose his shit at inconvenient times is how Stretch is trying to win, he might actually take this round. When Sans is done wiping his sockets, he shakes his skull to let Stretch know he’s not necessarily mocking him. It’s just-

“he doesn’t know _how_ to sugar coat it for you, honey,” he manages without cracking up. Not completely. “you met his brother? there’s a reason he screams his sentences.”

For some reason, _that_ takes the last of the pissy wind out of Stretch’s sails. He gets quiet and thoughtful in a way Sans has rarely seen him. Yet another mystery that piques Sans’s noseless, nosy nature. Not one for today, but that’s fine. He can be patient.

Sans and Stretch are finally delivered from porch purgatory by the deafening death rattle of pipes shutting off.

“you ready to thrown down?” Stretch asks, waggling his browbones. Sans lets his best grin split his face. For free.

“oh, i’m _always_ ready ta go, sweetheart,” he replies in his best impression of Red’s slightly rougher voice. Stretch gives him the chagrined grimace that deserves, and Sans accepts his trophy with a wink.

Then he’s in the spare room Edge usually sleeps in. He pulls his change of clothes out of his phone, takes in the row of deadbolts on the doorframe as he dithers over the changing process. It takes them a few minutes to get properly settled anyhow, and he can still hear them murmuring to each other a few rooms away. Sans looks at the holes in the walls Edge won’t let anyone fix, wonders if they’re meant as a reminder to Edge or to Stretch. Probably both, maybe for different reasons.

By the time he’s finished and sauntering down the hall to the other bedroom, two sets of thready snores greet him as planned. A few wince-inducing cracks in the blackout curtains aside, Sans doesn’t really need any light to see.

Stretch’s slumber party gauntlet is admittedly impressive. Although he might have to be disqualified on grounds that a full blown anime maid outfit complete with cat-eared wig isn’t actually pajamas. Sans casually snaps a pic for Al and keeps his steady shuffle up over to the far side of the massive mattress. Edge and Red are in matching black satin with red piping around the hems and collars, hand-embroidered skulls with little sequin eyes winking at even intervals all over the rich fabric. Edge’s are in the form of a dignified long-sleeved shirt and trousers, of course, and he’s already snoring comfortably with Stretch cuddled up against him.

Edge’s long, pointy skull rests on his brother’s shoulder and chest, right in a squishy tiddy-spot Sans knows from experience is much more comfortable than could be reasonably expected. Red’s jammies are just a long shirt-gown, a tight row of at least two dozen silver-trimmed cabochon buttons down the front to keep it tightly closed. It’s made to his size, unlike most of his cheap throwaway clothing, and doesn’t strain around his bulky middle. The piping is brighter on his, the same arterial poppy as his eyes. So is the button that closes the collar, orangey-red and round as a pumpkin.

He’s an absolute vision, and Sans’s soul aches as Red clutches _what’s his_ as close to him as he dares. Only Red’s tiny feet peek out the bottom, the cheap, machine-made socks that had inspired the masterpieces they’re both wearing adorning them in trashy defiance. The lambent points in his sockets linger casually on the ceiling as Sans rounds the last corner and comes to a stop.

He finally looks up at Sans. His scarred face stays peaceful-blank, but his eyes quiver with an abrupt surge of emotion when he sees what Sans brought to the party.

“that thing smells disgusting,” he whispers, the words barely breathed. Neither of the leggy skeletons to his left stir. “sh’d kick your raggedy ass ri’ outta honeypot’s bed for that shit.”

Sans smiles, soul twice as warm as the wan sun trying to peek in like a killer through the blackout curtains. He wobbles his skull so the googly eyes of the hood shaped like a toad’s head pulled up over it go nuts. The corner of Red’s mouth twitches in grudging, tender amusement. Sans’s entire onesie is a violent grass-green, shedding fake-fleece deeper than 70’s shag, and smells vaguely chemical.

Sans’s doesn’t care.

He’s too relieved to be forgiven.

Unlike some, Red and Sans vastly prefer to fight for no reason at all, just to spice things up. Doesn’t mean they don’t have real conflicts.

Different strokes for different folks, but they can’t always fuck about it. Some things take a little more than smoothing over.

Sans barely uses his bedroom anymore, not that he did much before. He does his considerable sleeping on the couch, other people’s cupboards, Alphys’s work station, abandoned swimming pools, and at the ‘dog stand. Wherever’s least convenient. Red’s the one who spends the bulk of his alone-time in there, and Sans willingly and wordlessly ceded the territory.

Thing is. Last week Sans decided to mix it up on a lark. Rolled around on the no-longer-bare mattress, enjoying the pile of scrap fabrics, chenille or fleece throw blankets, and half-mended clothes cluttering it. Lots of pillows, too, including one shaped like a cloud, and another like a big yellow taxi. Red has all sorts of cool shit, and he’d flopped over on his front to enjoy the situation from both sides, now.

Which was when his terminally, _ruinously_ curious phalanges had found a tiny slit in the side of the mattress next to the wall.

The note he pulled out had read merely, THANK YOU FOR TAKING CARE OF HIM. Sans knows his brother’s writing. It had been a note to Red…about Sans, obviously...and he’d fucking _kept_ it. To look at. By himself. Hidden shrewdly in a place Sans would never find it: right under the nose he doesn’t have. And there was no way to prevent Red from knowing it had _been_ found, no matter what Sans did from there.

Sans is good.

Red is better.

Sans had, through his own misadventure, irrevocably fucked up.

Sans put the note back and didn’t say a word. He got two days of grace, and then arrived home one afternoon to Red violently cooking, shirtless and smoking like a chimney. Sans took a deep breath and sat at the table, in the chair in front of the foot-square of tabletop Red had cleared for him. Red put a plate of his Red Light Special in front of Sans, then a second full plate on top once he emptied it. He watched Sans eat them while his breathing got heavier, less even. He wiped his skull over and over, visibly struggling. He’d finally stood up and looked at Sans with a terrified, helpless expression Sans has never seen before.

He’d clenched his shaking fists and choked out, “yer a fuckin’ _toad_ ,” then disappeared.

Sans had just leaned forward slowly until his face laid to rest in his ketchup-smeared plate, let his disappointment in himself crush him like a ton of bricks. He hadn’t been malicious, just...thoughtless. He didn’t fucking think.

Red doesn’t _hide_ his _bullshit_ from Sans anymore. He hasn’t for a long time, now. He leaves it all over the place, shouts it from the rooftops, takes it on an eight-leg european tour with a full pyrotechnic crew. If Red hides something, he usually has a good reason for it.

Most often, it’s because he’s dealing with a feeling he literally _does not have a place for_. Not _yet_. And the last thing Red needs is Sans plowing headlong into a second-story room where Red’s barely started shakily laying the floor struts, busting right through em and crash landing in a big pile of nailguns.

Sans looks down at Red, and Red looks up at him. Red could have just chopped off the part of himself that got hurt, close up shop, cannibalize it for parts and called it a day. Sans is pretty sure that’s what he’s always done before. It’s what _he’d_ always done. But nope. That hurt’s still there, and he watches it slowly alchemize into hope.

Troubled water passes under the bridge. An apology. Forgiveness. A promise. Not to smooth it over; that already got done. But Red’s willingness to make it clear that what Sans did mattered? Enough for Red to _say_ something about it…despite how hard it was for him to say _you hurt me_? How scary?

Sans promises to _make it up to_ him. To do better from now on, which is just as scary.

“this bed got room for toads?” Sans breathes, just as quiet as Red. The softness in his scarlet eyes leaks out to the rest of his face.

“get in here, asshole.”

Sans feels the shaky exhale driving the last word leave Red’s body, because he’s already pressed against his right side. More home than home, he lets out one of his own.

Red’s a touchy, vicious little goblin, and Sans loves him way too much. _Everything_ about Red is too much, and for Sans...well.

Too much is just barely enough. He welcomes Red’s personal chaos into his life, the same way he welcomed a pile of everything in the world into his sad, empty bedroom. Same way he welcomes his overlarge magic into his body.

But just a taste woke up something in Sans even more vicious, and that something is _fiercely glad_ to be the one person whose emptiness inside is big enough to fit every last bit of Red’s egregious bullshit. He wants to eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day for the rest of his fucking _life_. He can never get enough, even when he’s sick to death on everyone else’s.

Red holds what he considers _his_ close….and Sans holds Red even _closer_. He can’t help it. He wants it _all_. But he’s gotta learn to fucking wait til Red’s _ready_ to give it. Stretch thinks Sans should worry about Red wearing _Sans’_ _s_ pelvis as a hat? Maybe he should take a minute to notice _who_ moved into _whose_ house.

Red is _his_.

Sans’s arm tightens.

_He’s fucking **his**._

Sans breath shudders out so hard when Red’s fingers close on the back of his collar, he earns a barely-there little “shhh”. Sans bites his tongue until he tastes his own magic, keeping in the dangerous words Red can only bear to hear sometimes. Special times. He closes his sockets and breathes as even as he can manage, tries to live up to his reputational expertise.

“go ta sleep, baby,” Red whispers, their secret secret triple-secret pet name. “s’okay.”

Sans wipes his sockets on violent-green fleece, then finally joins the party.


	5. Rainy Nights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [No – The Long Haul](https://youtu.be/QeFkqRL186w)
> 
> [some things are made to get lost in the sauce]
> 
> I wrote some detailed content notes and put them at the end, since this chapter’s sexually explicit (hence the rating change a few ironically sexless chapters back) and contains some complex emotions? And this is a fluff collection. So I figured eh, can’t hurt.

Sans knows as soon as he steps out of the shortcut into their kitchen that Red already saw the forecast.

He’s shirtless in front of the stove, a cigar clenched between his teeth. One socket is narrowed against the smoke from the tip. It’s funnier considering there’s smoke coming _out_ of the other socket. Never fails to make Sans smile. He’s jerking the scorching bits around in the jumping-hot pan so hard, a piece of what might be bell pepper flies off and hisses against his rib. His scarlet eye flicks balefully at Sans.

“took you long enough,” he mutters. “gimme the eggs.”

“what’s the magic word?” Sans is already shuffling to the fridge.

“gimme the eggs, _bitch_ ,” Red mumbles predictably around the cigar. He keeps his eyes on what he’s doing, since he’s got the heat up so high the whole thing would probably be crispy critters the second he stopped moving it around. Red doesn’t _only_ cook when he’s upset, nor does he _always_ cook when he’s upset. All it means is that Red is soothing himself by providing for his people (person?) in a concrete way.

Sans watches Red smoke like a chimney, ply a spatula with one hand, and furiously crack, season and beat eggs with the other. Red darts an annoyed look at the hand Sans thrusts between him and the pan, then blushes as he catches a plop of ash. Sans just smiles, wipes it on the front of his cheap, disposable shirt, then steals the cigar and has a puff. One of his Extras, as he suspected. He keeps it at one for himself, then assesses Red’s state and extinguishes rather than returning it. There’s no protest.

Red doesn’t like storms. Sans doesn’t know why, which makes it likely Red also does not know. They make his scarred bones ache more than usual, sure, but there’s more to it than that. It doesn’t matter. What _does_ matter is that Sans has got him taken care of. All night if he needs him. All their lives.

“smells good,” he says quietly, watching the pan and Red with equally hooded interest. Red tries to play off how that gives him a case of the ol’ wiggle-eye, so Sans doubles down with, “turns out i’m _real_ hungry tonight.”

Then he makes a point to ogle, which is its own reward besides winning a blushy scoff from his crabby paramour. Scarred bones shift delicately in conjunction with the maelstrom of potential destruction that holds them together, a swirling plush that wobbles as he darts sideways to grab the eggs and add them to the pan with a hiss.

“The Duality of Skeleton” Red calls it sometimes when he’s in certain fey moods, or just slightly tipsy. Red’s non-filthy, non-violent flights of whimsy were one of the things about Red that just sort of blindsided Sans. There have been several. When he figured out Red _really_ _likes art_ , it was so unexpected and just plain cute Sans physically felt the sensation of ‘weak in the knees’. Thought something was wrong with him until he remembered it from Papyrus’s babybones days.

Sans huffs sheepishly when Red’s finished masterpizza lands half in the platter, and half on the counter. Didn’t mean to fluster Red that hard, so he dials back the lovey-dovey looks. Sans makes raunchy jokes instead while he scoops it back where it goes, and Red tosses the smoking pan in the sink. 

Red pulls the shirt that was tucked into the back of his shorts out, whack-dabs his front with it a few times, then wrestles it back on with a groan. Sans loves watching it slip down scarred bone arms and puff out over his thick middle as he tugs the hem down over it. Like the thing humans call magic tricks, but are actually just sleight of hand.

Neither of them feel like clearing a spot elsewhere, so they sit on the counter together as Red starts complaining about work. _His_ work, not the dog stand. It’s a new thing.

Edge took a gamble a while back and put word out that Red alters and details his clothes. Monster seamsters are in ruinously high demand. Size and number of limbs (or heads) aside, it’s not like humans can turn out a fireproof vest that actually looks fucking decent. Grillby’s outraged offense when he slapped down the travesty he’d been presented with by someone _else_ on top of Red’s burger one afternoon must have struck a chord. It’s what finally got Red to stop unanimously turning down the ocean of requests his brother’s strategic chatter had resulted in.

Or maybe it had been the two tight words Grillbz had forced out: _……..fix...this!_

Sans makes the customary ravine down the giant mound of food on their shared platter with his plastic fork, listens fondly to Red’s bitching. Something about clueless fuckers and frogging out princess seams. They each produce their binky bottles so they don’t have to get up, and the mound on one side of the ravine turns red. The other turns yellow, and they get down to business. Red talks with his mouth full. Most of what escapes his gnashing teeth lands on his side, so Sans never minds. It’s just Red’s hoarded leftovers fried to death with eggs to make it coherent. Sometimes he does it pancake style with thin batter, others it’s just like this: a big pile.

The point of this dish is that it’s _made_ to get lost in the sauce. It’s a perfect vehicle for condiments. Greasy and spicy, surprisingly nutritious. There's little bits of vegetables in here, not that you can taste them. It’s the only thing Sans likes better than Grillby’s, not that he’d admit that out loud. It’s part of why he cleans his plate-half. The rest has to do with the way Red pretends he’s not watching him like a hawk, and the minute relaxation he sees with each additional bite he takes.

Sometimes Sans feels like he’s spent his whole life trying to live up to the expectations of people trying desperately to keep him fed. Toriel for a while, Papyrus always. Grillby _still_ , sometimes.

The difference with Red is...well, there are a lot. But mainly it’s that whatever Red seems to expect as a matter of course always manages to be several pay grades below where Sans is idling. Like anything that isn’t the worst case scenario is a pleasant surprise.

Sans has always been drawn to high strung people. Someone to wind up with harmless bullshit, get a reaction from so he doesn’t feel like he’s slowly disappearing. Red both is and isn’t easily provoked, it really depends. In truth, Red transcends the paradigm by turning the tables on him.

Red….never fails to get a reaction from _Sans_. Sans finds Red’s abrasiveness ironically reassuring. His shit talk makes Sans feel like he knows where they stand, even if it’s not true at all. Sans gave up trying to make heads or tails of that crap a long time ago. Red seems to find San’s innate inertia similarly soothing, although in his case it actually makes sense. LV makes monsters jumpy as fuck, some of them as likely to stab as holler back if it’s bad enough.

Between all Red’s chatter and Sans’s usual pace, they’re eating by the light of the stove hood once Sans is scraping the plate. Kinda romantic, even with the wind getting howly outside. Red’s jitters return as his chatter winds down, but interest flares with a sharp grin when Sans licks the fork slowly with the flat of his tongue.

“...heh. so, you all talk tonight, or are you hankering to kiss the cook?”

Sans tosses his fork down, heaves off the counter with a grunt and waddles his way over between Red’s legs. Red leans over without further ado and bestows upon Sans some of his astounding makeouts. No matter how many Sans gets, he always wants more. Even when they’re slightly mustard-flavored.

Sans grunts again when gravity changes directions. Couch cushions appear under his back, and he’s sandwiched between them and Red’s weight. Red shimmies down a few inches to press their pelvises together, lets Sans feel the heat Red’s got idling there. Sans reaches down, smiles at what he finds.

“you’re all ready for me, huh?”

Red leers at him, moving gamely into his touch. “ohh, i’m _always_ ready ta go, sweetheart.”

Not even close to true, but Sans only says that when he _is_ , so it works out.

“well, i need some foreplay.” Sans winks. “how ‘bout you give me a little something to look at, huh?”

Red scoffs and rolls his eye lights. He still lets Sans sit up and divest him of his shirt, avoiding the splats of mustard with his fingers. They used utensils this time on the high chance they’d want at least slightly clean hands shortly afterwards. Sans uses his to get Red out of his clothes, and Red’s sneaky pickpocket ass gets Sans barebones at the same time.

Sans hums appreciatively at Red’s scarred ribs and arms rising above him. He pulls him down next to him so he can explore those nooks and crannies with his hands, then his mouth as his fingers venture downstairs. He knows which ones like attention and which don’t, and he takes his time lulling Red into sexy security before he steals a glimpse upward.

Sans loves the hectic crimson flush that deepens across Red’s face when he watches Sans loving how Red looks, how he moves. There are a precious few upsides to reading expressions like they can, but this is one of them.

“you’re so fucking hot,” Sans purrs experimentally.

Red lets out a petulant growl.

“hot-headed, maybe. you don’ keep me around for my looks.”

His rejection of even that generic of a compliment suggests he’s at max fighty tonight, but Sans is ready in both mind and pelvis for a challenge. And not the one Red thinks he’s gonna pose, either. _Stars_ , Sans loves him.

“that so? well, i got a hot head for you,” Sans continues, undaunted.

“mediocre at best,” Red grunts. So he says, but Sans’s bawdy tongue (and busy fingers) are melting confrontational tension around Red’s sockets bit by bit. If Red’s already resorting to meta comebacks...

“hey, i take all the openings ya give me.”

Oop, overplayed it. Here comes the derisive huffing.

“yeah? howzabout you prove it.” The corners of Red’s grin crease with impatience, and Red throws a leg over Sans to straddle him. He reaches down between to put Sans where he wants him; Sans sees the flicker of peevishness just in time and takes firm hold of Red’s pelvis. Red doesn’t react, but his sex-flush shimmers. He knows he got caught out. Sans makes Red take his time instead of slamming them together like he probably intended.

Sans knows Red’s impatience is with himself, but Sans ends up holding him back enough times he shoots him a dirty look. Red reaches into his bag of tricks anyhow and changes it up to _slow_ _vengeance_. Sans hums plaintively, but doesn’t mind a bit. He’s trying to last tonight.

Red twines his fingers into Sans’s ribs and gives them a squeeze just how Sans likes it. Red’s having a grand old time himself, shivering and smirking as his glacial grind turns insistent. Red is ridiculously good in bed; Sans wasn’t surprised to learn where Edge’s frock money used to come from. He can dismantle Sans like a rifle for oiling whenever the hell he wants… if Sans _lets_ him. Sans shivers and groans, then smiles up at Red with truly appreciative stubbornness.

He ducks his head, but Sans doesn’t miss Red’s frustrated realization that he’s not going to make Sans crack, nor be able to get there like this himself. Sans waits a few beats, then surges up and flips their positions quick as a snake. Still paying attention though, so he also sees this isn’t gonna be easy as that, either.

Heh...well. Some of it’s easy. Sans helps himself to Red’s exquisite kisses and the fluttering embrace of his magic, just enjoys him for a few minutes. Red’s a responsive and enthusiastic lover even when he’s cranky. Sans gets up on his elbows and cups his softening expression between his palms; less cranky now that Sans is the one doing the exercise. Sans gives his own desire free rein with a low growl of satisfaction. Red’s forehead creases again, renewing the glisten on its surface.

Sans pants through a smile as his soul swells hotly with love-lust, stroking Red’s rounded zygomatic processes with his thumbs. Loves when Red gets all sweaty…so pretty it makes Sans ache inside _._ Fucking _gorgeous_ , and so wet for him...he can see how much he loves taking Sans deep. Sans ain’t picky about how he gets off, but this is Red’s preference.

Sans’s customary methods take over as his mind wanders, and he goes a little harder than he meant to. The way Red’s mouth trembles around big, shaky huffs takes Sans from cruising altitude to dangerously close in a hot second. Sans bites his tongue and forces himself to slow down, his excess urgency escaping in a long, breathy grunt. Red’s fingers loosen their grip in the back of Sans’s ribcage…but he doesn’t complain, even though he had to be getting there. Interesting. The crease between Red’s sockets smooths out until he opens them.

“fuck’re you lookin’ at, asshole?” Red’s breathy rumble is sweetened with pleasure, but his eye lights spread like tart blots of spilled jam.

“thought i saw two skeletons _fuckin_ ’ each other,” Sans quotes breathlessly. “might be time to lay off the weed...”

Paydirt. Red snorts, trying to hide his delighted grin in Sans’s palm at the reminder of their last vacation.

Sans leans in and licks sensitive vertebrae revealed by his shift, slows down even more. That’s when Red finally moans for him, quiet and sincere. Yeah. Sans thought so.

Then he goes from hiding in Sans’s hand to sucking his fingers, and Sans is the one moaning and constructing tensors in his head as firmly as possible. Red’s way too good with his mouth, and he knows it. Sans reclaims his hand to a faint chuckle, hides it up inside Red’s ribcage to fondle his yeah-spots. A _handy_ distraction from Sans needing to actually stop for a second. He fills Red’s acoustic meatus with the dirty secrets Red loves to hear, all the stuff Sans wants to say as he resumes the fuckening. Then he pops the question.

“wanna use that thing i got for you?” A flicker of petulance crosses Red’s face in his peripheral vision. “gimme a lil show?” he adds for sauce. Red rolls his skull on the cushion and peeks up at him.

“fine, ya pervert,” he huffs. “if you’re doin’ the work, guess i c’n indulge yer weird fetish tonight...”

Sans is already leaning down to grab Red’s phone out of his coat on the floor; Red nips the toy out in a hot second. Red spreads his legs wider and presents his pelvis at Sans for the ‘show.’ When he closes his sockets, Sans’s gaze shoots right up to his face for the real prize.

He’s right about Sans having a fetish, but it’s not for toys. It’s for Red getting off whenever and _how_ ever he wants.

That’s why Sans goes easier as it goes on, not harder. Red wants it slow and gentle tonight, and the toy helps him come anyhow. His brow furrows, but his mouth stays lax and soft. He watches Red meander closer and farther on the path Sans is pulling him along, the one the toy lets him follow. Sans can’t resist dragging it out. Red reaches up and grabs his shoulder instead of the armrest. Just holds it, like he’s blindfolded and needs Sans to lead him there. Like he _trusts_ him.

Sans has to bite his tongue again; he doesn’t want his own noise to drown this out. Doesn’t want anything to distract Red right now. Sans is barely moving by the time Red starts his quiet keening, his whole body trembling-tense as he rides the edge, still gripping Sans’s shoulder like a lifeline. He doesn’t ask for more, doesn’t say anything. Just gives Sans his gravelly voice tumbled fine as sugar sand, its silky grit slipping into his labored exhalations until Sans has mercy.

He leans in and kisses him, craving the secret softness Red keeps behind his teeth. Red opens for him easy, mouth still quivering with his raspy keen, and Sans pushes his tongue into that sweet give. Then he pushes with his hips, too, the toy like a shoe behind his heel to tip him right over the edge. Their kiss muffles soft, astonished noises; when they do it this way, he can _feel_ Red come. He loves it. He loves _him..._ so fuckin’ much. He’s glad they’re kissing so he doesn’t start babbling it. He swallows Red’s quiet sob as his reward instead.

Red lets to the toy fall away, curls both arms around him. He breaks the kiss with a sated mewl, pulls Sans in tight and nuzzles the collar, so Sans keeps gently at it. Sure enough, Red’s long tumble ends with a tiny splash, another kittenish noise muffled against bone and leather. Sans moans, petting and kissing at scarred bone helplessly as his own magic gathers it up. It’s so perfect, Sans decides to call it there.

When he leans up Red’s still catching his breath, but opens his sockets to watch as Sans separates their skeleton business. Sans pulls free and tilts his pelvis forward again in blatant offering just above. Red’s eyes are a crimson haze in his sockets...but his expression is melancholy, and he’s quiet tonight. Sans sighs an appreciative _yeah_ as Red touches him, but he stops after a lingering fondle.

“up,” Red pants shortly, insistently clack-patting Sans’s ilium. Sans doesn’t bother holding back his surprised, eager _oh_ , or the anticipatory rattle of his shiver. Red lets Sans fuck him whenever, but this is a _sometimes_ treat. Sure, Red’s tetchy and probably set on one-upping him, but he doesn’t care. He scuttles up and over Red, plants his hands on the arm of the couch and leans against it, keeping his pelvis back far enough to let Red finish wearing himself out. Work out the jitters, let him get some sleep tonight despite the noise of the storm that’s coming. He foils his plans by gripping the knobs of Sans’s femurs and hauling him closer, then un-foils them by going to town.

“oh my god,” gushes out of Sans. It’s the sound of his mind melting. Red’s indecently good at kissing, one time made Sans come just from licking his bones. This? Absolutely ruins him without fail.

He cries out when Red hums smugly, digging his fingers into upholstery slowly tattering under this sort of treatment. It helps him be still, keeps his hands where they are. Red’s mouth on him is soft and wet, putting his whole body into it just like Sans wanted. Sans has been holding on to control for so long, he’s actually lasting even now. The shred of wherewithal he has left is pretty self-satisfied…until Red opens his sockets and looks up at him.

Okay, so. Maybe Sans isn’t fooling anyone. At the very least, he’s not fooling Red. He knows he’s being managed.

But Red _lets_ him. Red doesn’t _want_ to feel better; he wants to feel as shitty as he thinks he deserves. But Sans is in under his guard. Red can’t help himself because it makes Sans feel better to take care of Red. So he takes what’s he’s given…as long as Sans is the one giving it.

He only lets _Sans_ fool him, fuck him, help him, tell him things he can’t believe and tries to anyways. He tries so hard all the time to just let Sans _love_ him, and Sans can’t take it. Can’t take crimson eyes trembling up at him with something that’s almost hurt, betrayed by loving Sans so much he winds up loving himself a little. Because he is him.

Their eyes meet like mirrors held facing each other, endlessly reflecting what they feel until one of them shatters.

“love you, pumpkin.” The whisper chokes out of Sans. He can’t help it, he _knows_ Red’s done as a doornail, but he still can’t. Red’s eyes ignite with an outraged surge of arousal, and Sans sobs out, “s-so much, ‘m sorry-, _fuck_ , here it goes--!”

The weird, loud noise Sans makes when he comes shudders out of him, but he never holds it back with Red. Not with the way it makes his eyes flare like cinders, yeah, just like that and oh god…not just the usual, but with revenge _._ Red pulls another trick, and one of his sockets flinches shut quickly as Red decides Sans is going to make a mess all over his _face_.

Sans’s noise pours out of him again, high and surprised because he does not _like_ that, except he _loves_ _it_ , he loves _Red_ and he’s barely even done before he’s collapsing down on him to kiss it better. His skull fills with his own regretful crooning along with the taste of his magic. The pour of water outside joins in as the storm’s first finger touches their house, then Red’s mute, pitiful noise when Sans kisses his mouth, too. Sans reaches down to cup Red’s frustrated arousal, hunching over him protectively.

“lemme try, pumpkin,” Sans begs shamelessly between sloppy kisses, “just try, please? please?”

Red huffs and shivers, then his legs relax open. He hides his face in Sans’s neck.

“fine, whatever,” he whispers harshly. He makes a surprised grunt when Sans’s hand darts down lightning-fast to grab the _toy_ , then “oh shit,” as Sans puts right it where Red likes it. Sans shows him that he can do it just like Red, that he pays attention, that he _cares_. Red twitches and draws his legs up, clutching Sans at hip and shoulder. He whines again, and Sans echoes it without meaning to. He’s still good to go, and Red needs more.

“lemme get inside you, pumpkin, lemme-”

“do it,” Red chokes. He whimpers when Sans enters him, his magic tight with need, but Sans doesn’t want to let up when he seems halfway home. Not if he’s got a chance here. He’s gonna fix it, gonna _try_ just….just like Red….

Sans’s body works like a machine, rock steady except for the everything inside his skull. He’s still making that crooning noise, still kissing Red’s face all over because he can’t stop thinking about what Red made him do. He hates it, and he loves him, and he _needs_ this, yeah, he needs _Red_ , everything is so fucking beautiful and terrible and yeah, he’s gone.

Sans is hopelessly lost in his own sauce.

“gonna come, baby,” he hiccups in defeat. And then he does, Red’s grip on his pelvis jerking them hard together once, again. Sans’s noise gets swallowed by Red’s angry-sounding bellow, and Sans flinches before he realizes. Sans didn’t dare hope. But he tried anyhow, and it worked. They made it there together, and for some dumbass reason, that breaks his heart.

It gets a little vague after that, but Red wipes Sans’s face with the blanket, guides his hand to the collar for them to cling to. Sans fumbles out the remote and gets the TV on _loud_ as the storm really kicks in, cranking the volume til they can’t hear the rain. Sans crawls on top when Red starts his shivering, lets his weight still his tremors. Red reaches down with his free hand to grip Sans’s spine low in the spot that always helps him calm down.

They cuddle in slightly dumbfounded silence as their tacky bones cool. They usually take turns for the kind of stuff that gets them all wonky in the head, and neither of them know the protocol for both of them being this utterly wrecked. Other than...well. Just hold each other, pretend to watch whatever this is.

“you okay?” Sans croaks after a bit.

“gonna be,” Red manages after a little longer. “you?”

“think so…”

Sans eventually registers humans rolling out dough with butter inside. They fold and fold it, roll it out until it’s thin again. Sans sees how it is after it’s baked, all flaky and puffy. He wonders what it’d be like if he made a quiche with dough like that. Good? Would it cook in the middle, or be all soggy like that one guy’s? Probably soggy, butter leaking out all over the place. Sans always fucks it up somehow.

Sans realizes he kind of wants to try it anyways, and for some reason, that is _really scary_. His breath hitches and won’t stop. Red lets him hide his face in his blanketed shoulder, just like when he gets too drunk and Red comes to take him home. It’s _different_ , though, and Red must know that because he doesn’t pretend it’s not happening. He goes from squeezing his spine to petting his skull, makes a low croon he feels more than hears. Reminds him of the noise he made earlier, which in turn reminds him that he definitely came inside Red that second time.

Sans leans up to check on him. He shows no external sign of discomfort, but Sans knows how badly he wants to be cleaned up.

“how ‘bout we make some bone broth?” Sans manages, voice only a little wiggly.

“now you’re cookin’,” Red says hoarsely, eyes full of the kind of desire he usually closes his sockets to keep inside. They help each other sit without letting go, and Sans puts them in the bath with a sigh. Red works the tap, and the water’s hot enough to make just about anything seem less intense.

Sans encourages Red to lie back against him, and he goes easily. Not fighty anymore. His gaze rests peacefully on the bathroom wall, goes hazy and loose as Sans uses a washcloth on him. Sans slips a finger against bare magic under the cloth, waits. Red shudders so the water jitters briefly, then rolls his skull so it’s tucked against the collar. Sans eases a digit into the dense tangle of Red’s magic, lets the water clean his own away. Red gets a little slick from it despite the lightness of his touch, but that usually happens. Sans finishes and gives him a chaste skull-kiss.

Red sits back up with a gentle slosh, his pelvis already going bare now it’s clean. Even that slight distance opening between them sets off a strange little wibble in Sans. He sloshes after to close the gap, and Red’s content to let Sans cuddle into his back. But he stops reaching for a brush and holds Sans’s ankle underwater, gives his fibula a stroke with his thumb. Sans blushes. Sans always holds him like this when he needs to… _say_ things. Stuff. Faces hidden, but still so close.

“hey,” Sans whispers, hiding between Red’s shoulder and skull. “...sorry. for talking too much.”

“why?” Red grunts, surprising Sans. “not like we got rules against it.”

Red’s agreeableness makes Sans feel more guilty. Reminds him too much of how Red gets after they do kinky stuff. Because… maybe that had _been_ kinky stuff. Sans isn’t sure.

“should we?”

“no,” Red says quickly. “we don’t need that bullshit. come on.” Sans’s soul feels all hot and crumbly. He can’t blame him. Red doesn’t want to need safewords to hear the dangerous ones, even if for him it’s just being told he’s loved.

“and hey, uh….same.” Red says.

Now Sans really is confused. He takes a gamble.

“you’re...sorry?”

“money shot earlier,” Red says softly. Sans knows he freezes like a deer in the headlights, but can’t really help it. Red’s voice gets even smaller. “didn’t think it’d be a no-go, but i shoulda asked.”

Guilt fattens the roil of conflicting emotions clogging up Sans’s word-maker. Yeah. That kind of reaction, no wonder Red thinks that. It’s not the kind of thing Sans ever wanted to… do to anyone? If Red had asked him if he wanted to, he’d have said no. And he still would, because that had not been something _Sans_ did.

That had felt like Red making a fucking point. A visceral reminder not to be careless with Red’s _feelings_ , and a dizzyingly erotic expression of just how much Red lets Sans get away with.

(Sans uncomfortably and unwillingly recalls a time he saw Red slap a drink out of his brother’s hand to foam all over the carpet, then loudly accuse him of having butterfingers. Instead of screeching back like usual, Edge had fetched a towel, looking chastened. He knew what he did.)

Red shifts so his own skull touches Sans’s collar. Sans’s breath eases out, and yeah. Maybe those had been feelings he wouldn’t mind experiencing again. As a slightly more...structured...activity. A pretend-mistake of Red’s choice, working for predestined forgiveness. When he’s expecting it.

The flood of reassurance and safety unlocks Sans’s magic just enough to squeak out, “it’s, uh...”

“complicated?” Red says quietly.

“yeah,” Sans admits. After a few minutes filled only with splashing, Red says something else. Offers it.

“i use that thing on my own sometimes.” Sans knows that, of course, and Red knows he knows. Still. “i c’n go twice now and then if i’m extra het up.”

“thanks,” Sans says before thinking, and he feels Red tense in the circle of his arms. Shit.

“fer what?” he says, voice dangerously neutral.

For saying so. For taking a chance on himself and giving Sans a second one. For his willingness to try, even when shit’s less than ideal. Sans scrabbles around, but his bullshit factory is smoking rubble right now. He answers helplessly with the truth, since waiting any longer guarantees Red will decide the worst possibility is the true one.

“for letting me use it on you,” is what comes out.

Sans thanks all the little stars that his weird knack for finding the softest truth decided to activate now.

“turns out it’s, uh...” A symbol of Red trusting him? A sexual redemption arc for the ghost of Sans’s self-worth? Something that made Sans realize Red loves him even more than he thought?

“...pretty hot,” Sans finishes in a whisper.

“yeah,” Red agrees, unexpectedly returned to soft mode. “alright, i’m done soaking in your ass-soup. i’m gonna get fuckin’ clean.”

Sans chuckles and fondles Red as the tub drains, petting lush magic and delicate bones with equal enjoyment. He gets out before the absence of water makes him feel heavy, leaving Red to seriously boil himself to the degree he considers “fuckin’ clean.” It takes less time than usual, but Sans is still ready to pounce once Red emerges, his scoured bones pink as a shrimp from the steaming basket.

Sans pulls one of his Smooth Moves, has Red wrapped in an oversize towel like a helpless terrycloth burrito in a blink. In the next he’s got him sat on the closed toilet lid; Sans straddles his spouse-adjacent burrito and plops down for the pin. Red’s trying not to laugh, and so is Sans as he pulls out the drawer under the counter dramatically.

“regular or _fancy_?” he asks with a browbone waggle. Red grunts sourly, which does not disguise how pleased he is even a little. Red gives in and leans his skull back, closes his sockets.

“…eh. surprise me, dickshit.”

Sans pulls out the little pots of quick-dry paint, chooses the slightly metallic ones in black and bright red. The latter leaves a pretty sunset stain even after it wears off.

Sans grins as he begins dabbing paint around Red’s sockets with the tiny brush, reminded of the time Edge said he’s glad they get so much bedroom exercise, since it actually reminds them to bathe. Sans takes his turn chattering about that, since he tends towards nostalgia more than Red ever has.

Papyrus had taken offense, and had implemented a system of forms to be filed if someone were to take issue with the frequency of his brother’s bathing. The dropbox is attached to the front of their house, and Papyrus usually checks it first thing when he gets home. So far the only thing the COMPLAINT DEPARTMENT has contained has been hentai manga Alphys thinks Sans should read. He spends a while talking about that, too, since Red just looks at the pictures. And expertly critiques them. Red gives a few more in response as Sans adds thin, delicate lines of black close to the rim.

Then Sans pauses, narrowing his sockets at the stretch of bone over the sockets he’s decorating. It is... _d_ _ry_?

“you, uh. feelin’ peckish or anything, pumpkin?”

Red’s mouth quirks in amusement, seeing to the heart of Sans’s concern even with his eyes shut.

“worried you fucked all the juice outta me, huh?” The quirk relaxes into a fond grin. “…heh. maybe a lil bit. water mighta sucked out the rest. but you c’n bet yer bro’s cherry i’ll be sweatin’ like a pigeon in the microwave again by this time tomorrow, so maybe you should stick with worrying i might jog your elbow.”

“i _should_ paint a dick jizzing a warning label across that cesspit you call a mouth,” Sans grunts, finishing the blended edges with the q-tip. “but i’ll resist the temptation, since i _do_ keep you around for your looks,” he snips, then clack kisses Red all over his sharky-ass teeth to discourage a comeback.

Sans keeps an eye on him, but Red really does seem fine as they slip on clothes out of the clean-basket someone left under the bathroom sink, and when they head back downstairs, too. They resume occupancy of the sleepin’ couch, at either end this time although they definitely engage in some idle footsie. Red pulls out his phone to do something or other, and Sans, well. Sans sets his phone on the table, pulls out Trusty Rusty, his trombone.

“workin’ on your setlist, huh?” Red doesn’t look up, doesn’t even change expressions. But his shoulders ease down another inch or two. Sans plays a few flourishes along with the rapidly changing reality tv show soundtrack, the deep, brassy blatts drowning out even the thunder...and Red starts to look downright sleepy.

Sans doesn’t actually have a setlist. It goes better when he doesn’t plan at all, just goes up there and plays whatever pops into his head. Except his _head_ doesn’t really come into it, not that he’s had any complaints. Heh. It’s more like light filling him up, which comes out through his hands and turns into sounds. Not that he’s ever….described it that way. It’s just a feeling he gets sometimes. Nothing important.

Sans plays his slow, meandering way through a few extended jams, the pleasant glow in his soul growing as Red’s sockets drift shut. They stay that way, even as he keeps “writing”. Or whatever it was he said he had to do. Math. His fingers still as he falls asleep, and Sans watches him. A new warmth fills Sans along with that light, though it doesn’t usually happen when he’s just practicing.

Red looks _satisfied_.

It’s ironic that the same thing that makes it so much work getting him there…is the same thing that makes it possible at all. That’s okay, though. Sans is an expert at paradoxes.

Sans actually found out by accident, and only because he found something in the lab that made him put it together. He hadn’t even been snooping. Not...exactly. Well, okay, he _had_ been, but not about Red.

Red’s Alphys doesn’t go by a nickname, either. Not that she needs one, since she’s a total hermit who only ever sees _her_ Undyne...and Red, every month or two. Sans knew they all shared notes sometimes, and mayyyybe he’d taken a little shortcut to Al’s to see if he could find a hint on why. The relevant tidbit had been filed with what Sans had gleaned from context were considered ‘failures’. This both was...and wasn’t. Red’s Alphys had been working on something to try and help monsters keep their high LV tamped down. Red had volunteered for its trial run at one of his broker points, and it actually worked. Worked for _him_ , unlike most other monsters.

He still takes it, and she continues making it for that reason. It’s in the cigars that aren’t Extras. The ones he smokes every day, and keeps on his person at all times. The additive has an immediate result….and a secondary one that is cumulative.

It’s also got a few side effects.

Red has to go hard at the end to get there at all most of the time, no matter how they have sex. (Unless they’re using Red’s straps, but that’s for _special_ occasions. They do special _stuff_ then. Heh.) They’d mostly used hands on each other at the beginning. After a time or two of Red’s fingers guiding Sans’s to increase the pressure and friction, Sans thought he knew the score. He could translate that to the rest of the ways they ended up wanting to fuck, which has been most of them at this point.

But Red’s not always in the _mood_ to go hard, not that he’d ever put it like that. It took Sans a while, puzzled at the issue of Red’s seeming self-denial, but then he thought he had it all figured out. Until one time, Red basically...faked it.

Rusty’s golden notes drag and warble mournfully with Sans’s time-softened regret.

It’s not like Red _said_ he came, and he didn’t. He just acted like he did. Sans also knew what they were doing wasn’t enough, especially when Red’s topping like he’d been. Sans is more used to it now, and it doesn’t love-wound him like the first few times. That kind of intent can’t even touch Sans’s HP, but Red had gotten so upset anyhow. And Sans still gets sore now and then if Red goes hard enough to come that way.

Which was why he’d thought it was more of ‘Red protecting Sans from Red’s bullshit’ brand bullshit. Sans had gotten…insistent, like he has before. Said he wanted to feel it. Red gave as much as he was willing to, and then he stopped. And that was when Sans knew he had been wrong about it.

Sans used his mouth after like he does sometimes anyhow, and Red encouraged him. He made Red come for real, then cuddled tight into his back and whispered with him. Nothing about the faking thing. Sans just told Red a lot of things that happen to be true, presented in a certain way.

Sans is in the _getting_ answers business, not giving. But his mistake cut him deep, and he let as many answers as he could find in himself bleed out for free. That he uses his mouth after because he likes the taste…and because sometimes he can’t bear for it to be over yet. How he likes going hard most of the time…but not always. The most important one: that Red _doesn’t owe him_ orgasms, whether they’re Sans’s or Red’s. The way Red tensed in his arms gave him a different kind of love-wound, and he realized apologizing would only make it worse. But that didn’t matter. Some things can’t be learned by reading faces like books, sneak in couched in dirty jokes, be smoothed over with magic collars.

Sometimes Sans has to _say_ it.

He let time wear down the sharp edges of Red’s ego. Sans used that time to seriously reconsider how he _phrases_ things when he and Red fuck.

Then he’d given Red the toy as a gift.

Red had been both suspicious and uncomfortable. The mechanism inside it isn’t anywhere near cheap, although Sans had traded it for a favor. Its gentle pulses interact directly with their magic, not physical substance. It’s not a vibrator, and he’s been told it doesn’t work on humans. It doesn’t even _create_ sensation, not exactly. It…facilitates it.

It’s for monsters who don’t have any genitalia, and it only works if they want it to. That’s probably the part Red feels weird about. Big difference between accepting a climax Sans ‘gives’ him, and one he has to take for himself because he sincerely wants it. He’d heaped derision on it and Sans, but he’d still tucked it away into his phone. Later, Sans noticed Red giving him a few mysterious, evaluating looks.

The next time Red got in that special kind of mood, Sans asked if Red would use it while they fucked. The derision returned, but in a new form. It changed shape over time, just like Red is changing. If Red having an orgasm as a favor to Sans is a convenient fiction that helps him reach for his own pleasure, well. It’s true. Everyone wins.

And Sans got a free lesson that believing he’s got Red ‘figured out’, _ever_ , will always be a mistake. It’s easy to think glib crap like it ‘keeps him interested’, but that’s a load of bull. Red is figuring his shit out slow and methodical, plugging away at tiny improvements so patiently it leaves Sans in awe. He’s not sugar coating it. Red’s done some terrible things. But he hopes Red knows Sans isn’t….actually any better. Refusing to take action is at least as bad as taking the wrong action.

Rusty squeaks in protest at Sans’s line of thought, and Sans pushes away justice, reaches for patience. Looks across the couch at Red’s unexpectedly peaceful expression despite his LV, and reaches for love. They’re two sad sacks learning how to be happy, no matter how bad at it they are. That’s good enough.

Sans wiggles a slender toe out of a hole in his sock, uses it to stop the recording on his phone. He keeps playing until he sets his jam session to play on loop. Only then does he put away his instrument and grab a blanket instead. Sans pulls it around himself and crawls over to Red, pauses to make sure the collar’s proximity registers. Then he lies down on him and cuddles up tight.

Sans goes to sleep cradled in the howling cocoon of noise, the nightlight in his soul pressed gently against someone who needs it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Detailed Content Notes:
> 
> -Red abruptly causes Sans to come on Red’s face during sex, and Sans has an intense emotional response to it that neither of them are expecting. There’s no malice on either side; they take care of each other after, and nothing bad happens. They just realize they need to work on their communication, and they do.  
> -Not sure if I rang the bell enough, but Red has odd reactions to things. One of them is intense arousal when Sans tells him he loves him, to a degree Red occasionally finds distressing. Sans is generally careful for that reason. But sometimes it just comes out, and that happens.  
> -Sans reminisces on a time when he thought Red had been doing some kind of ‘self-denial’ thing for Sans’s sake, then realized he had been pressuring his partially inorgasmic partner to the point where Red tried faking it.


	6. Family Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Counting Crows – A Long December](https://youtu.be/FDnzwZbifrc)
> 
> [very brief reference to past suicidal ideation, slight medical stuff]

Watching Red sew doesn’t get old.

Not for Sans, anyhow. His staring grows egregious; you’d think he’s in _love_ or something. Sans huffs softly to himself, reaches up and fondles the collar. He’s already touching it, but touching it _more_ does a _thing_. It's something he does when he’s thinking about Red, and Sans cares less about giving himself away than he used to.

The day Red started taking in garments for repair and alterations was awesome enough, but once he started taking commissions? Actually _creating_ things instead of just fixing? Ohhh, that’s the real money shot. And not just because of how much Red enjoys it. It also does something _for_ him. To him? Sans doesn’t know, but that first pair of wrestling trunks really started something in motion.

Red can design and execute pretty much any type of specialty clothing for humans or monsters, no matter how farfetched or vaguely realized the commissioner's idea is. Well, as long as they survive the brainstorming process. Red’s still Red, after all. But he uses stuff he already has to make nearly everything, and few realize his incredible pieces are in truth, repurposed garbage.

Red figured out a way he could take things that were _his_ , make them into something else, which then becomes…. _not_ -his.

And that is somehow okay.

These days, he doesn’t even wait on other people’s ideas. The bulk of Red’s income is from when he takes a big load of ready-to-wear garments around to the local nudie bars. The dancers swarm him like adoring locusts willing to shell out for his work over and over, and he always comes home empty handed and flush with cash. Well, except for the times he comes home with a fragile, twitchy dancer who sleeps on the other couch, talks with Red in the morning over Sans’s excellent coffee, and goes on their way with advice and resources they might not have had before.

Over time, the number of objects Edge burns is shrinking.

Sometimes in his most secret heart of hearts, Sans wonders if making the collar was like a weird sideways baby step towards this. Then Sans gets the hell over himself, because Red’s a generous person. He’s always taken good care of his brother, made sure he had things he wanted as well as what he needed. Still takes good care of him now, and Stretch along with him for good measure. Red takes care of a lot of people...including Sans, which he loves nearly as much as being the one who gets to take care of _him_.

Red hunches over his mass of frothy tulle, meticulously embroidering tiny blue flowers along a seam. He pauses to examine one down through the glasses and oh, god. The fucking _glasses_ ; Sans cannot handle it. Little curved half-moons made by a monster lenscrafter, since skeleton eyes are as non-human as they get.

“whass yer damage, asshat?” Red growls toothlessly.

“eh, you’re just so cute i’m gonna fuckin’ die,” Sans answers, sighing like a lovestruck puppy. Red just gives him a long-suffering stare. Then he looks back down to reposition his gnarled, perfect hands, and sets them free to do their work.

“don’t go blaming me for your weird glasses kink,” Red says, looking back up at the grainy Star Trek episode, which he can see with no problem. His chin’s tilted down and his eyes are up in the space where the other half circle would be if he needed bifocals. “fucks _sakes_ , that o’brien’s a weird bitch,” he mutters aside, to himself. “least he found someone else with weird bitch disease.” Red sighs, glances down and up. The lenses are actually preventative, and keep his sight from weakening over time as it evaluates the tiny stitches. “if i’d known how nasty ya are, i never woulda grown eyeballs.”

Sans suppresses a giggle. “you don’t _have_ eyeballs, honeybunch.”

“what’d i tell ya bout the _honey-_ names?” Red grouses with a little more oopmh. “jus’ reminds me of the honeypot. gives me the willikers thinkin’ bout that time i walked in my bro guzzlin’ it down like there was no tomorrow.”

“that sounds like a personal problem,” Sans simpers.

“yeah, i got a lotta those. worst one’s over there putting his fart bags in my _got_ damn sleepin’ couch.”

“the formal term’s whoopee cushion, and it’s _our_ sleepin’ couch. when _we_ aren’t making whoopee _on_ it.”

“yeah, that’s part a the problem.”

Sans can’t hold the giggle anymore.

“which part?”

“all of it,” he grunts predictably. He looks up again to check the time on one of the seven clocks in this room. “you gonna make my dinner or _what_?”

“gonna put me over your knee if i don’t?” Sans waggles his browbones.

“more like i _won’t_ if ya don’t.”

Sans relishes the twitch at the corner of Red’s mouth.

“...welp. don’t think i can live in a world where i gotta spank _myself_.” Sans heaves himself to his feet, drawling, “this is blackmail, i’ll have you know.”

“wha—? it’s _coercion_ , fer fuck’s sakes!” Red hollers after him. “that’s it, your ass ain’t seeing the back of my hand til it goes back to felony school!” Sans can feel that bespectacled gaze watching Sans’s wide ass sway like an oxcart on a rocky road. It’s why Sans bothers walking anywhere.

“hey, that sounds hot.” Sans elevates the volume of his voice as he rounds the corner. “they got a uniform?”

They continue in that vein for several pleasant minutes, comfortably yelling across the house at each other as Sans checks the wrapped wad of shortcrust wedged in one of the fridge’s precious free spaces. It’s cold as fuck, so he goes ahead and rolls it out. Sans and Red have maybe five dishes apiece they can make okay. Other times they get to experimenting, and the results nearly always end up in the ‘dog machine as all-purpose food binder. It’s fine, though. Small price to pay for the fun they have with it, and they’re happy to pass the cost on to the community. Within reason. Mostly.

Sans takes out his special jar. What’s in it almost makes Sans relate to Red’s whole hoarding deal, because yeah. It’s his favorite thing. Things? They’re all alike and also a little different, because they’re handmade. Just shy of three dozen ceramic pie weights, each one creamy white and painted….glazed? Fuck if he knows. But they look like round, grinning little skulls, and Papyrus made them, and Sans _loves_ them. They’re fiddly and complicated and decorative. Probably took a long time to make. They’re not correcting a problem, and they’re not even necessary. Dry beans work just as well. These just make it more...fun.

A little love letter to something Sans _can_ do, rather than a sop to everything he can’t.

Sans pinches off the rims of the pie shells with his distal phalanx, the shape of it oddly perfect for this particular task. He puts in scraps of parchment paper and pours in the weights, pops the shells in the oven, then opens the fridge to see what’s on tap.

Red never got used to the whole “surface food does stuff like spoil” thing. Sans takes a hard pass on a few tupperwares that hold things he calls Red’s ‘critters’, usually followed by a monologue on the wonders of life springing from death in a closed system. Sans is allowed, since they’re _his_ critters, too.

One time Edge and “Pike” (their Undyne, who they mostly just also call Undyne) had been over, and Edge wouldn't shut up about how gross it was. So Sans extended the monologue with an anime-esque comparison to monsters’ situation in the underground, something about new growth in the midst of decay. Edge had been flabbergasted at how Undyne had been moved to passionate tears over it…but he probably shouldn’t have been. He’s met her.

The important thing is Edge shut up, while Undyne ranted herself into an inspirational froth over inedible leftovers. Red stopped hunching on on himself like he was trying to disappear, started snickering instead. Still surprising that he let Sans get away with it instead of snapping his face off for hassling his brother, no matter how he felt about it. Maybe it’s because Sans almost never does, and because he also twists Red’s balls on Edge’s behalf if he thinks it’s called for.

But yeah, that's where Sans and Red’s inside joke involving a dramatic fist-pump while sobbing THE UNQUENCHABLE HEART OF MOLD! comes from. Now he can’t help thinking of it every time he looks in the fridge. And he might even feel different about it? Like Undyne somehow made Sans believe in his own empty hype. No wonder Papyrus and Undyne-

Sans startles slightly when his timer farts, then chuckles at himself for standing there letting all the fridge-cold out while he takes a mental vacation. That’s when Sans realizes he’s in one of his Moods tonight. Thinking way too much and staring off into space, but eh. It’s why he uses shit like timers when he’s actually trying to _do_ something, just in case.

Sans pops out the shells, leaves the oven door ajar, then lets out more cold to war with the oven’s heat and decide on the filling. Red and Sans both specialize in the kind of comfort foods that can be made with nearly any sort of leftovers, and Sans’s quiches are a prime example. In fact, Red’s frittatas and Sans’s quiches have nearly identical ingredients, just arranged and cooked differently. Kinda like _them_ , now he thinks on it.

Sans settles on some elderly but well-wrapped bacon ends, a thriving onion that hasn’t quite flowered, and something green from the crisper drawer at least two levels above the Slime Layer. He’s gonna cook the shit out of, then cook it again. It’ll be fine. It’s not til Sans is done with saute and starts beating the eggs that he feels bone hands creep over his iliac crests from behind. His grin returns in force.

“smells good,” Red rumbles against his occipital bone. Sans keeps fork-slapping the eggs for a minute, only stopping when Red’s token groping turns hesitant. He doesn’t actually want sex; Red just has limited scripts for this sort of thing. Sans is more than willing to have mercy on him at this point. He’s paid his dues, and the sauteed bits have to cool so they don’t instantly cook the eggs anyhow.

Sans turns around and leans against the counter. He takes Red’s hand out of his shorts and lifts it brazenly to his face; Red’s eyes quiver like a fly stuck to a glue strip as they follow the motion. Then Sans rasps his teeth back and forth gently over his scarred knuckles, and Red melts. Instant happy-turtle mode, easy as egg pie.

“i know you are, but what am i?” Sans murmurs, apropos of nothing at all.

Red crowds Sans gently against the counter, muttering, “a dumbass who leaves the oven open.”

The thick swell of his middle squishes him as he leans to close it, and Sans pulls him back into a tight hug. His spine curves eagerly in his palm, and Sans pets Red nape to sacrum like a cat hellbent on being overstimulated. Red continues purring passionate insults about Sans’s prospects, parentage, and sexual proclivities as he rubs his face all over Sans’s. The expression on it is one Sans thinks of very privately as ‘cuddlegasm’, the goofy half-smile of someone who’s having an extremely good time and doesn’t entirely understand why.

Sans doesn’t pay attention to much else except Red trying and failing not to giggle as Sans sneakily reopens the oven. He pinches Red’s coccyx when he leans to shut it with an exasperated huff, then fucking opens it again.

“ain’t gonna preheat if ya-” Red squeaks as Sans pinches him again. Red tries to capture Sans’s hands, but he keeps them flitting away like startled bone fish.

“think you got some _pre_ heating your _shorts_ -” Red grabs his elbow to keep him from knocking over the bowl of egg mixture. Sans takes the opportunity to wiggle a phalanx between Red’s ticklish lumbar processes, which never fails to result in a ridiculous _hnng_ sound. Red probably thinks it sounds more stoic than a laugh. Sans thinks it sounds like Red doing his best to take a miraculous shit, but Red _hnng_ s in triumph as he finally captures and displaces Sans’s tickle-fingers.

“you shitass lil _nobgoblin_ , wouldja just-”

Someone knocks loudly on the door.

Red and Sans pant gently into each others’ flushed faces for a long, lovely moment, grinning like hellions. Sans reluctantly unhooks his leg from over Red’s ilium, who grabs it back with a wicked little growl. Sans spanks the back of his hand to to trigger the emergency femur release system, licks his chin to make him quack, then gives him a pat and heads to the door. They’re knocking for maybe the fourth time once he gets there, but he wasn’t about to deny Red the joys of watching him leave.

Instead of running his usual _who’s there?_ gambit, Sans opens the door and says “ _orange_ you glad i didn’t say ba….”

But it’s Papyrus, and for a second that’s really weird. Who knocks on the door of their own house? Sans supposes the knocking could be explained on behalf of Stretch, who’s unconscious and being cradled like a skinny, hoodie-clad bride across Papyrus’s broad chest, but-

“HELLO, BROTHER!! YOU’RE LOOKING,” a very short pause most people wouldn’t notice, “GROSS TODAY!”

“thanks, paps,” Sans says, latching on to the deflection his brother’s offering. Sans _is_ wearing his ‘Size Queen’ t-shirt. Heh. “i was feeling festive. heya, honey.”

Papyrus gives him an evaluating look. Okay, Sans is maybe being paranoid again about Papyrus possibly Moving Out. Sans blushes. He’s going to find his brother sleeping (or just chilling out hardcore while yelling “honk-shoo”) on the couch that is extremely _not_ Sans and Red’s sleepin’ couch, and possibly even his own bed at several points, over the next week or two. Very ostentatiously.

Because Papyrus still lives here. Nominally, since he rarely sleeps, travels a ton, and is therefore just kind of always doing something. So it’s hard to say exactly where the “living” takes place, but this is certainly the address on all his paperwork. He’s got some of his stuff over at pretty much everyone’s, but his room is still here.

Papyrus’s browbones lift, which makes sense since Sans is kind of blocking the door. Sans rubs his hand on his hip sheepishly as he steps back to let his brother and Stretch in.

“AAAANYWAY,” Papyrus says, walking quickly inside to reveal Edge standing sourly behind him. Paps heads right to where Red’s sewing on the couch as if he hasn’t moved in hours, glasses and all. Paps is already chattering his face off.

Sans relaxes and looks back at Edge, shutting the door behind him as he darts Looks at Papyrus. Sans isn’t the only one in a Mood tonight. They probably got in a tiff over who got to carry Stretch again, but he nods aloofly at Sans. Ohh, he thinks he’s playing Professor Dignity tonight, huh? Well, Sans has a cure for that.

Sans grins like a half-asleep incubus and slowly lifts his arms, then waggles his eyebrows just to make sure.

Edge’s grim visage thaws slightly as he steps forward, then stops with a frown.

“PLEASE TELL ME THAT’S KETCHUP.”

Sans looks down at the stain Edge is grimacing at, arms still raised.

“probably?” Sans knows it is, but why spoil a perfectly good mystery?

“WHAT IS IT ABOUT YOU THAT MOVES OTHERWISE REASONABLE PEOPLE TO _SETTLE_?” Edge ponders, but his face softens into a more personable, if toothy, smile as he scoops Sans into his arms.

“’s cause i’m a consolation prize,” Sans sighs, rolling his dome on Edge’s beefy bone shoulder like a swooning heroine in a romance. “don’tcha feel _consoled_ , hotcakes?” There’s nothing Edge responds to better than repeatedly punching the Big Fake Flirting button, and there’s nothing Sans likes better than getting someone else to do something _he_ was supposed to.

“Nyeh heh heh,” Edge snickers, quietly pleased as he strides to the kitchen with Sans in tow. It’s always the first place he goes, and Sans silently congratulates himself on finding a free taxi there to complete his masterpizza.

“IMPRESSIVE!” Edge crows, straightening as he takes in the blind-baked pie shells, cooled saute, and prepared egg mixture. “I CAN ACTUALLY TELL WHAT YOU ARE ATTEMPTING TO MAKE!”

The oven beeps to inform them that it is, just this moment, preheated to the correct temperature. Sans grins like a demon imp from hell at more sincerely admiring comments from Edge at his “efficiency” and “timing”. Sans keeps flirting, and Edge grabs the spatula to jab critically at the saute. It passes muster. Before you know it, he’s….yep, here he goes. It’s not easy to add the saute to the egg stuff one-handed, but Edge is very talented.

Thing is, Edge is a smart cook-ie. He knows Sans set it up this way. Finishing it up for him is his reciprocal thanks for Sans’s effort to put everything exactly how Edge thinks it should be. The mutual flattery is just for sauce.

Much like Red and Papyrus, Sans and Edge get along like a house on fire. They fucking _love_ each other.

“SANS! ARE YOU BROWBEATING POINTY-ME INTO COOKING FOR YOU AGAIN?”

Sans whoops gently at Edge’s about face, the oven closing with a bit more force than necessary with the perfectly filled pie shells inside. Sans discreetly sets another timer with his pocketed hand, swooning around on Edge’s shoulder some more. Edge steadies Sans possessively, probably because Papyrus still has Stretch.

“I’M MERELY PERFORMING THE TRADITIONAL ETIQUETTE OF ‘HELP WITH DINNER’, AS IS CUSTOMARY!! TO OFFER! WHEN YOU ARE A GUEST AT ONE!” Edge says stiffly.

“TO _OFFER_ , YES!” Papyrus scowls at Sans. “AND, _TRADITIONALLY SPEAKING_ , NO ONE EVER ACTUALLY ACCEPTS!”

Sans gives Papyrus his most innocent grin, and Paps grimaces in anticipation.

“i dunno, bro. you wouldn’t want me to w-”

“DON’T DO IT!! DON’T YOU _DARE_ , SANS ‘PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY’ THE SKELETON, ESQUIRE!!”

“…work myself to the _bone_ ,” Sans finishes inevitably, winking at Papyrus’s bark of outrage. Papyrus takes a deep breath, sighs it out, and shuts his sockets for a moment.

“I PROPOSE A GENTLESKELETONLY TRADE TO PREVENT FURTHER ABUSES OF GUESTLY GOODWILL,” Papyrus says, lifting Stretch about two inches. “I HOPE YOU DON’T HOLD IT AGAINST ME!”

Stretch twitches in his arms, a frown creasing his bone brow.

“nn...”

They all hold their breath for a second…but that’s all, folks. Stretch’s features go smooth once more. There’s a quiet moment where they get kind of bummed out by the fact that Stretch has been like this for nine days now. If he’s still like this tomorrow night, they’ve gotta take him back in.

Sans changes the pitch of his voice. He’s a pretty decent mimic, so he only busts it out under special circumstances. Gotta keep people’s expectations nice and low.

“if i said you had a beautiful body, would _you_ hold it against _me_?” Papyrus doesn’t look up, and the earnestness melts to exasperated fondness.

“ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING,” Papyrus informs Stretch gently. “YOU BRING SHAME UPON THE PAPYRUS NAME. AND MUCH TO MINE, I ALREADY AM.” He gives him a little hug to demonstrate holding Stretch's body against him, and Sans’s taps Edge’s shoulder instead of grunting. Edge eases up quickly, blushing. Sheesh. Papyrus took Stretch on _one_ date, which ended up the exact same way all of Papyrus dates end. They’ve had their challenges, but Paps sure ain’t one of em.

“I ACCEPT YOUR PROPOSAL,” Edge snips quickly, then just puts Sans down so he can rush forward and claim his grand prize. Sans is fine with being chopped liver, and just shrugs cheerfully at his brother as Edge retreats to go pester his own. Their raucousness immediately fills the living room, so whatever Papyrus wants to talk with him about can happen in privacy more complete than trying to creep away.

Sans pretends to clean something while Papyrus sweats and shifts his shoulders around. Sans holds out his hand at his side in case anyone might want to slip anything into it. Papyrus wiggles again, sighs, and then there’s a hot phone in Sans palm. He winks, and Papyrus rolls his sockets. Sans clacks a hand on the counter to swing himself up with a dramatic grunt, then punches in the code and gets to work.

The only people who know Papyrus can’t really do numbers are Sans and Undyne. It’s no big deal. Sans made this program so that Papyrus knows how much money he has and where it is. It changes the numbers to images, and also makes them different sizes. There’s an empty dummy account next to it. That’s so he has something concrete for comparison when he gets anxious and changes it back to numbers, because he can see that they’re not the _same_. It works.

Sans knew as Papyrus was growing up that anything past “a few” just kind of became “a lot” for Papyrus, but he never had a problem reading, organizing, or understanding directions. He's also much better at hiding things than he lets on. The issue _wasn’t_ one until they got to the surface, and it still isn’t because Sans decided it wouldn’t be. Papyrus doesn’t have any trouble keeping track of it this way. But he worries that he does, or that he will. He worries he’ll make a mistake, so every once in a while he has Sans check it.

“you’re using the right one,” Sans informs him mildly.

“OF COURSE I AM!! THE OTHER ONE’S EMPTY.” Sans checks. It is. “ZERO PLUS ZERO IS STILL ZERO,” Papyrus asserts nervously, and Sans can’t help smiling at another of his brother’s expressive wiggles.

“it sure is, paps.”

Sans makes sure it’s running how it’s supposed to, and that the numbers match the images. Sans is more worried about one of those stupid “updates” kicking in and messing with his code, but it looks like the rings of preventatives he puts around it haven’t even been challenged. He gives the phone back, but Paps still has that droopy thing happening at the outer corners of his sockets.

Sans holds out his arms, keeps them there until Papyrus looks at him.

“i can’t even clean my own house, bro,” he half-whispers through a sheepish grin. Papyrus's face falls, then goes all indignant. He stalks over to hug Sans up on the counter. It makes them almost the same height.

Sans holds his brother, relaxing against his padded shoulder while the rich scent of egg pie fills his kitchen.

“hey. you know those, uh. the quiche things you made me?”

“ _I_ DIDN’T MAKE YOU ANY QUICHES, SANS. ARE YOU-”

“lil skull thingies.”

Sans never interrupts him. Papyrus goes quiet.

“sorry. just, uh. they’re my favorite thing, okay?” Papyrus’s arms tighten, and he hunches over Sans protectively. Every monster knows what that means.

“sorry...” Sans whispers again, but the hunching just gets more protective. For a lot of things. But especially for giving up hope before Papyrus even had a chance to _give_ him his favorite thing, and that he had to be yanked back from that cliff unwillingly.

“THIS IS THE PART WHERE I MAKE A VERY FUNNY JOKE THAT DISPELS THE TENSION CREATED BY YOUR LOADED APOLOGY,” Papyrus says hoarsely.

Sans starts chuckling, and the chuckling deepens to a belly laugh that makes Papyrus pull back, again indignant, this time at _being_ wiggled. Papyrus prefers to be the one in charge of wiggling if it should occur. So of course Sans grabs his bro’s long skull between his hands, rasping skeleton kisses all over it like he did to embarrass him before sending him off to school. Papyrus snickers and blushes like Sans is tickling him, so he tickles him, too.

Papyrus lets out a strangled NYEH and scoops Sans off his perch, then just carries him around a while for revenge. He cleans up the mess Sans pretended to, chattering about a new sport he invented and might take on a world tour for the benefit of humanity. Sans only realizes he must have fallen into a bit of a snooze when Blue’s bright voice bounces his head up off Papyrus’s shoulder like a trampoline.

“WHO FARTED?” he chuckles, pulling on a pair of oven mitts he must have brought with him. Sans blinks and smiles, reaches into his pocket to turn off the timer. Blue _doesn’t_ live here, and he still never bothers knocking. Most of the time he just walks out of the bathroom. Often to the hilarious accompaniment of a flushing toilet, which skeletons most decisively do not need.

“he who smelt it, dealt it.”

“WELL, I DON’T SMELL ANYTHING BUT QUICHE, SO IT MUST HAVE BEEN _YOU_!”

“TELL THAT TO THE PRIMORDIAL OOZE AT THE BOTTOM OF THEIR CRISPER DRAWER,” Edge snips, rounding the corner into the kitchen. “THAT ODOR COULD MAKE FELLGORE WEEP.” Sans smiles patiently at the crass language; Edge only brings _him_ up when he’s especially stressed.

“smells just fine as long as you leave it alone,” Sans points out mildly, which is true. It minds its own quietly fermenting business as long as you don’t stir it up.

“I’M NOT EATING ANYTHING FROM THERE,” Edge says instead of taking the bait, and Sans’s grin flags a bit. Apparently things did not go well in the other room.

“it’s cooked,” Sans says, not bothering to remind him he was helping cook it a few minutes ago.

“IT’S UNSANITARY.”

“eh, sanitation’s for the sane.” Sans smiles and winks. “don’t think any of us-”

“I’M GOING TO BURN YOUR REFRIGERATOR,” Edge announces flatly.

“don’t,” Sans says, a word tugged out soft and unwilling, and everyone just. Stops for a second. Blue’s bent over staring at the top of a quiche, heat pouring out of the oven to waver towards the ceiling. Sans hides his face in his brother’s shoulder, mortified. He _never_ takes Edge’s shit seriously…he doesn’t know why he-

“ey!” Red barks. Sans peeks up to see him rounding the corner in a long, casual stroll. He slaps his brother sharply on the ass with a loud clack, making him jump and straighten with his precious burden. “sounds ta me like _snappy papy_ thinks he’s gonna burn out the unquenchable heart a _mold_ , huh?” He stomps heavily past him, angrily snatching away the quiche Blue’s hunched over. Blue smirks and lifts his browbones high as a kite, finishes unloading the oven, then turns around and crosses his arms for the show.

Red leans back against the counter with a flounce, holds the pie with one hand, then just digs his bare fingers into it with the other.

“that _fridge_ is what’s feeding _your_ poncy spandex piehole tonight,” he growls, curling his claws.

Steam billows out of the pie as he gouges the rich surface, crumbles the pastry. Edge flushes grimly, sockets fixed on his brother’s fingers as Red continues.

“you tryin’ to say _my_ sweetie can’t _feed_ ya?” Red pulls his fingers out, sucks them clean loudly, then stirs the pie some more. “are you trying to say _i_ can’t feed ya? that i didn’t-”

“NO!” Edge shrieks, quivering. “AND, SHUT UP!!”

“but thass _your_ job, little brother,” Red hisses through a razor grin, then casually licks a shred of bacon off his wrist. “so how ‘bout you put something _in_ your mouth, cause you obviously ain’t thinking too hard on what’s coming out of it.”

The fight goes all the way out of Edge, and Sans glances surreptitiously at Blue’s face. He has not apparently ever been there for this before. And sure, Sans didn’t know Red could go that long without cussing the first time he saw him set his brother down, either. Doesn’t mean Sans can’t enjoy watching Blue getting one of Red’s lessons by proxy.

Red sucks his fingers again, then shifts his grip on the pie til he’s holding it like a sandwich. His mouth opens wide as a whale shark’s, and he takes the whole tin between his teeth delicate as a cat carrying a kitten. Then he walks over to his brother and holds his arms out in silent demand. Edge doesn’t argue, doesn’t look directly at him. He hands Stretch over, then follows them back to other other room as Red processes grandly past him, Stretch’s skinny bones folded up like a pile of linens to fit in his stubby arms.

“reader, i married him,” Sans snickers to the room at large. The joke actually lands for once. Sans supposes Red’s not the only one who saves his best for the folks who matter most.

“I THINK I WOULD HAVE REMEMBERED A WEDDING!” Papyrus says archly, giving Sans a hug before regrettably setting him down. “WELL! THAT WAS AWKWARD AND HILARIOUS! LET’S EAT OUR MOLD PIES AND WATCH A MOVIE!”

And they do. When Blue, Sans and Paps return to the living room for chowtime, Red’s already got the Evil Dead 2 on. Welp. First come, first serve. Speaking of which, Red also has Stretch, heh, _stretched_ out across he and his brother’s laps with his skull in the crook of Red’s arm. Red’s chin rests on that fist, his other hand meticulously feeding Stretch the mushed-up quiche. Using his fingers, with which he occasionally also feeds himself.

Sans shuffles over and sets Red’s plate on the top of his wide-ass head anyhow, then hands Edge his.

“THANK YOU, SANS,” He says quietly. Seems his current stage of grief is acceptance.

“no problemo, bob-lemo,” Sans chuckles gently, scooting himself under Stretch’s skinny shins. “saved the feet for you, bro,” Sans chuckles. Papyrus gives him a Look. He sits, though. And eats, too, after primly covering Stretch’s stocking feet with a sweater from the back of the couch like it’s a tablecloth. Papyrus bugs his sockets pointedly at Sans’s plate, and he takes a bite. He looks down at it in surprise, because it’s definitely the best he’s ever made. He eats it all.

Loud forest noises and screams fill the living room; chainsaws flash and blood splatters. Red finishes feeding Stretch and gives him a pat. Sans watches out of the corner of his socket as he takes his plate off his head, lowers it a few inches, then just slides the fat slice into his mouth like a coinslot and chews. He gives Sans a hot glance as he tosses the paper plate on the table-pile, waggling his eyebrows madly, then winks. Sans blushes and finishes his dinner.

It’s nice.

“I WONDER WHY ALPHYS AND UNDYNE NEVER COME OVER WHEN _WE’RE_ HOSTING,” Papyrus gripes, absently patting at Stretch so he knows he’s talking to him. “DO YOU THINK THERE’S SOME SECRET GRUDGE BREWING BETWEEN THE BONES AND SCALES? DO I NEED TO UNEARTH MY DEERSTALKER CAP AND IN _VES_ TIGATE? OR IS IT MORE OF A DERIVATIVE FINGER-SNAPPING MUSICAL THEATER SITUATION?”

Sans smiles. His brother sounds thrilled at either possibility, but might as well break it to him before he gets too invested.

“i’m pretty sure it’s cause it’s like four in the morning right now, dude,” Sans rumbles gently. "they're asleep."

Papyrus takes a deep breath, holds it, then glances with narrowed sockets surreptitiously at the darkness outside the window. The curtains Red made a while back are parted, the dim gold from the lamps and the blueish flashes from the movie painting the foot or so of snow outside.

“WELL!! THAT’S!! REALLY NO EXCUSE,” Papyrus snips, then turns his pout at Red. He’s got the grace to cover his sockets, but he’s snickering heartily, his soft bulk shaking gently back and forth.

“WELL! _I_ HAPPEN TO AGREE WITH YOU!” Blue chirps from where he sits crosslegged, spine straight as an arrow with his ass planted in the exact center of the couch cushion. He’s watching blood spatter across the walls in the movie, tilting his skull like he’s trying to memorize the pattern. “IT’S FAMILY DINNER NIGHT! NIGHT IS _RIGHT_ THERE IN THE TITLE, SO MAYBE THEY SHOULD HAVE HAD SOME COFFEE AND STAYED UP!”

Papyrus predictably volleys back with how “in the morning” is in the title of what time it is, so they should actually just wake up _early_ in order to attend. It’s not long before no one else knows what they’re talking about anymore.

Sans admires just how much of a pure agent of chaos Blue is at heart. Secretive enough to make Sans slightly uncomfortable, and that’s saying something. Sans is way too predictable to even challenge that fucker, and even Papyrus is...predictably unpredictable. In the majority of situations, you can just come to terms with being surprised by whatever he does.

Blue is something else. He turns to Sans for a slow, deliberate wink. Sans smiles, and they….understand each other. Most people think that looks means Blue and Sans don’t _like_ each other. It’s a source of amusement for both of them, so they let it stand.

The reason they don’t talk to each other much in group settings is because they don’t really need to.

If Sans and Blue need to _talk_...it’s in private, and it’s because something is wrong. The first time had been Blue coming to him, worried out of his skull about his brother’s explosively contentious relationship with Edge. Sans and Red often _seem_ overprotective of their brothers, especially on the surface. Blue actually _is_.

Blue’s also one of the only people to ever fully grasp the depth of Sans’s abilities as a social engineer. He’d been _going_ to ask him to break them up without causing lasting harm. And yeah, it’s entirely possible Sans could have. But he didn’t let Blue get as far as asking. He’s pretty sure Blue’s grateful that he didn’t let him become someone who tried to break up his brother’s relationship.

Instead Sans had talked him out of his tree with reminders that Stretch’s health wasn’t any worse than it had been, to be patient and give them time to make it over the speedbumps. The fact that Blue had already beaten the shit out of Edge earlier that day had put him in much more receptive mood for that kind of talk, and joking about the look on Edge’s face afterwards had put them both in a better mindset.

The last time had been Sans coming to his place. He drank tea out of tiny cups, cracking self-deprecating jokes between mumbles around his increasingly upsetting nightmares. Mostly about something happening Papyrus while he was traveling.

Just being around Blue had reminded Sans how Papyrus’s inherent nature tends to dissolve malicious intent even in the most dead-eyed humans. Not that they become best friends or anything; they just sort of...forget he’s there, as long as he’s not trying to stop them from doing anything. Makes sense, since they’re usually the sort of people who only find pointless cruelty interesting. Blue’s affect is a bit more unsettling, his smile more knowing, but he still has that dissipation thing going for him. That along with reassurances framed as a pep talk had, in fact, pepped Sans up. For some reason, that actually works coming from Blue.

The booty calls had been fun while they lasted, too, but Blue’s a lot more energetic (and energetically bossy) than Sans prefers. They’d been sticking strictly to dish sessions well before he and Red ever became a thing. Red knows, of course, although Sans suspects he didn’t figure it out until it became obvious Blue’s the only one who’ll sit on Red and Sans’s ‘sleepin’ couch’.

That’s where he is right now, in fact. Blue is not interested in the kind of relationship Red and Sans, or Edge and Stretch, have. Neither is Papyrus. Sans would have said the same of himself back when, even if he suspected in his heart it was a lie. Same one he pawned off on Grillby before surfacing, and Toriel right after. Weirdly enough, it was Blue’s security in what he wants that made Sans question his own desires.

Blue’s grin at the screen grows smug, but he still blushes when Sans winks.

Far more monsters emerged from the underground than had been inside it. Sans had kept himself from the edge for a while after the surfacing by being part of the team figuring out how the hell that worked, but the answer was, as always, anticlimactic. Turns out creating a pocket universe inside a universe that already exists sort of breaks the ones adjacent, and _un_ making it had some backlash. Pretty pedestrian, but the backlash had some unexpected perks to go with, even if it took Sans far too long to see it.

Sans looks around at his weird little skeleton-family without seeming to.

There are others, of course. A _lot_ of them. A good thing, too. Humans couldn’t put the monster toothpaste back in the tube, but they would have done their damnedest if there hadn’t been instantly so fucking _many_ of them. With multiple Sanses, they’d also been instantly _everywhere_. No targets. Just a sudden, universal, and numerous presence, far too slippery to get a bead on.

Some of them studiously avoid each other, _some_ others, or all others. Some Sanses and Papyruses are true hermits, like Red’s Alphys. Some have formed little groups like theirs. Most of the avoiding Sans is just fine with, although he wishes the Axe and Sugar didn’t. They have their reasons, but Sans wishes he could tell them their deal bothers him way less than the ones who are legitimately cruel to each other. Luckily the surface has plenty of space for keeping your distance.

Sans is sympathetic, and he respects others’ choices even when it makes him wistful. It’s not exactly comfortable existing alongside physical proof of what you’d be like in different circumstances, or if you’d made different decisions. But it is what it is.

There wasn’t any way to figure out who’s “hosting”, so to speak. Every Frisk said that _this_ is the world they remember (even though that was as much as any of them would say about Before). But no one ever suggested that Sans pick a nickname, even the ones for whom it’s mostly a formality. After all, Red’s Undyne is only “Pike”, and Sans's Undyne is only "Snag" when someone has to ask “which one?” People tried to stop Sans from finding out why, but the reason became clear eventually.

Sans was barely holding on, and everyone could tell. They let him keep his name because he seemed to need it the most. Sure, it’s a consolation prize for being a total wreck, but Sans is the kind of person consolation prizes were invented for. He is, in fact, consoled by it.

He smiles at Edge, who loves his nickname. Everybody loves a callback. Speaking of which, there’s something no one else has tried yet, probably.

“hey, edgelord.” The face he turns to Sans has been sufficiently brothered into judgmental equanimity. “heard any good jokes lately?”

Edge’s sudden delight is matched only by the chagrin of everyone else in the room. The thing about Edge’s jokes? They are, in Sans’s humble opinion, very funny. They are also unspeakably filthy, and it’s really hard to say _why_. There is rarely any cussing, and involve exchanges between two or more people in unclear situations. It’s sort of like a horror movie where you never entirely see the monster. Just a tentacle here, a row of sharp teeth there, and the eternal question of whether Edge is describing a _person_ being used as a flower vase, a literal vase being used for off-label purposes, or maybe they’re just a florist.

Sans isn’t a connoisseur, he’s a pure collector. And he won’t get tired of jokes until he has his literal million of em. Edge’s are always new, because he doesn’t hear them. He makes them up himself.

And Stretch had confessed something to Sans at one (very stoned) point during one of their heart to hearts. Edge takes fear and makes a mockery of it. He laughs in its face to take away its power, and he doesn't tell his 'jokes' to just anyone. Most people just assume he's grim and humorless, an overdressed temper tantrum with heels on. Stretch told Sans some of those 'jokes' remind him of poems, or cantrips against something so frightening it can't be described. Because that's what fear is to them, really. The bad things you didn't expect, instead of the ones you braced yourself for. Edge understands that like no one else Stretch has ever met. When Stretch realized Edge wrote his own material… that was when he also realized he had fallen in love with him.

It works. Sans is in the middle of a sincere belly laugh, the others are groaning in dismay (even Red), when they finally hear it.

“th’ hell’re _you_ laughin at, peter?”

They all suppress their various joyous responses to the soft, slurred mumble from Stretch, just laugh harder. It can be ascribed to the joke, and everyone can let their relief out. Stretch vastly prefers everyone pretends he’s fine. Even Edge checks his eyes and mouth without comment, and Blue watches him do so like a dagger-eyed hawk likewise.

Stretch means Sans, of course. Sans calls Red ‘pumpkin’, and one night over cards Stretch had decided that makes Sans “Peter, Peter, pumpkin- _eater_ ,” which is not only true but fucking hilarious. Red had laughed so hard he both cried and had a coughing fit, then lit a cigar and had a whole two days without trying to start a fight, fixing anything until it was broken, or losing his temper at all.

Red grins fondly while he makes sure Stretch can lower his arm with both of his, and Papyrus makes sure Stretch can use his legs to lower his hand against token resistance. Stretch knows what to do without asking, which is another sign he's come out of it scot-free.

“this movie about some guy yelling at his own crotch for two hours?” Stretch asks muzzily.

“FOR THE MOST PART!” Edge informs him happily as he helps him sit up. “DON’T WORRY, EVERYTHING IN THE HOUSE CAME TO LIFE IN ORDER TO MOCK HIM” Stretch sits with no problem. Red could dodge a stray elbow in his sleep, and does on a regular basis.

“think i remember that part….nyeh...heh...” Stretch giggles, then takes the damp cloth Papyrus passes down to wipe his face and hands. Blue takes off early to “drain the weasel”, but he’s getting a few medical things ready back at Edge and Stretch’s place that omit the need for a followup. There’s a few things Stretch still prefers only his brother be present for.

The dinner party winds down after that. Edge walks Stretch to his car with a discreet arm around the shoulders, and Papyrus is still hung up on the Undyne and Alphys thing. He heads over to their place to let them know it’s definitely Morning Already, and to bring them the extra quiche Sans made for that purpose.

Sans snickers to himself, anticipating the photoshoot Alphys will no doubt send his way documenting how Undyne takes her wakeup call. Movement catches his eye at the other end of the couch, but it’s just the love of his life nibbling at something stuck in one of his knuckles. Probably stray mushed quiche. Red’s in his happy mode. Just sitting quietly, seems like he’s watching the crap on the screen but Sans know he’s just. Chilling out. Existing in a more comfortable way than usual. And the weird things is...Sans accepts that part of why he's happy is because Sans is here too, watching him _be_ happy.

The day Edge invited Sans over, poured him tea, and asked about his _intentions_ towards his brother…well. It had been fucking hilarious, obviously, but the point had eluded Sans until he realized it was about _giving_ Sans information, not getting it. They both knew Sans has to be careful with Red. Anyone who doesn’t is likely to pull back a proverbial (or literal) bloody stump.

Sans had acted out the scene gamely enough, but what it had boiled down to was that Edge hadn’t seen Red so happy in a long time. He believed Sans had something to do with that. The fact that Sans did not seem to _understand_ his role in that happiness had started bothering Red’s brother, even if he couldn’t explain why. Red didn't exactly give him the tools he needed to express something like that, but he was brave enough to try anyways.

But he still has express _ion_ s, and Sans’s treacherously busy mind supplied the answer anyway. Sans’s refusal to assign himself value…to think of himself as important to Red… Well, aside from the private problems it caused, it was insulting. If Red was happy, Sans automatically assigned the cause to something else. Most often, his special cigars. Ever since he accidentally found out what they were.

And it offended Edge that Sans wasn’t giving Red enough credit.

Much like their favorite marital aid, the substance Alphys makes for Red _facilitates_ the happy mode. It doesn’t cause it. Red has to want to, and he has to _try_. Apparently the happy-quiet didn’t start until after they got to the surface, and Red started hanging around with Sans all the time.

His attachment to Sans had been unprecedented, and difficult for Red to come to terms with. Once he did, Sans had had to reckon with a little thing called _Red doing his best_. Sans had not stood a chance. For Red’s part, he still doesn’t really know _how_ to seek comfort, love, and reassurance. Can’t ask. But he’s better at accepting it now, and he can give it more easily than he had in a long, long time.

On his own terms.

Sans loves him so much it hurts a little. There are so many things about Red that should bug him, and vice versa. All the mistakes he could have made instead of the ones he did. All the ways he could have been better and isn’t. But instead of looking at each other and seeing all that….being different people helped Sans see some good in himself. Speaking of seeing things, Red pretends he just noticed Sans staring again.

“the fuck’re you-”

The rest of Red’s sentence becomes one of his yell-yawns, and Sans can’t disagree with that. He yawns helplessly in answer, then pops into their room to retrieve the wad of bedding-like substance they take _off_ the sleepin’ couch when people come over. He’d intended to return it to its usual home, but then Red’s hands find his iliac crests again.

“thought i could stand another slice of pie before naptime,” Red rumbles. “you servin’?”

This groping isn’t hesitant at all, and Sans decides he is. Red bundles them up into the double-nest, and his tongue is gentle and sleepy on Sans’s bones. Stays that way on his magic, and Sans is reminded why he never turns this down. Then Red untucks one of Sans’s hands and pets his own skull with it. Red decides if Sans gets handsy when he goes downtown, so when he stops guiding, Sans stops petting. Red doesn’t pause to speak, but he puts Sans’s hand back, grunts and undulates his spine loud and clear.

Sans exhales excitedly and leans up on an elbow, then strokes Red's spine like he had in the kitchen earlier. If Red wants to try out a little bit of cuddlegasm to see how it pairs with his pie, Sans is more than down. Turns out it’s a real cherry on top for everybody. Red gathers Sans’s hips in a tight hug and makes garbled versions of noises he usually saves for when Sans ‘fucks him stupid’. Sans ends up bent over Red til his forehead kisses his own shaky knee, stroking that soothing pattern til he whispers a warning, then makes his ragged noise.

Sans finally sags back, hauling Red’s sleepy body up onto his. He kisses him for his recommended daily allowance of sweet-tarts, pets him more now he can reach his whole spine. Red grunts appreciatively, then leans up. His thick middle presses down into Sans’s, and he’s hot between the femurs when Sans nudges his own there.

“what’s your pleasure, little treasure?”

Red blinks down at him.

“eh, you can pay me back tomorrow,” Red says lightly. He gives Sans a little clack-kiss on the jaw that melts his heart like nice cream. “i sleep easier when you owe me somethin’.”

“mm….actually, i was thinking. tomorrow seems like a special occasion.”

Red’s crimson eyes spread like drops of blood, and his breath huffs out quietly.

“yeah?”

“mmhmm.”

His grin goes sharp, but his eyes stay soft above its vicious tilt.

“gonna make it so i can’t sit right ever again?”

“among other things,” Sans simpers. “got any requests?”

“don’t wanna sit right ever again,” Red says immediately, predictably, and with some of that softness leaking out of his eyes to spread over the rest of his expression.

“maybe you sh’d just sew a donut cushion into your shorts,” Sans chortles. Red’s laugh shakes silently through his body, wiggling and grinning down at Sans like he’s the best thing since sliced bread.

“if i’m gonna sew a frame around someone’s ass, it sure as hell ain’t gonna be mine,” he says eventually, giving him another sweet peck.

“if _i_ frame your ass, it’s gonna be for something i did,” Sans sighs blissfully, letting Red nuzzle his mandible.

“my ass _is_ somethin' you did, so i better rest up so you c’n fuck me in half tomorrow,” Red purrs. Then his massive twelvepounder of a skull clonks down on Sans’s neck, and the collar. He’s snoring in minutes, and Sans smiles sleepily at the heavily decorated wall of the bedroom. Hasn’t been blank in years, now. Fifteen, maybe? He’s been promised ‘forever’, so he doesn’t bother counting.

The movie posters go all the way down to the mattress, and Red’s straps, cuffs, and blindfold are tucked between it and the wall right under Patricia Quinn’s oversized crimson lips. His mind still won’t be quiet despite the grey light leaking in at the edge of the curtain, but it seems less urgent to _make_ himself sleep with Red’s deadweight pressing down on him. Feels safe to let his mind take the meandering path towards slumber.

Red says the straps had been Sans’s idea, but that’s not really true. _Sans’s_ idea had been for him to make a collar for Red to wear. Red tried to hide it, but that had shocked him so profoundly and deeply he actually went to go stay with his brother for a day or two. He came back and almost-apologized very carefully, which Sans had found uniquely disturbing, then politely asked him not to bring it up again.

Eventually Sans cornered Edge to get something resembling an explanation, but his evasions had been surprisingly effective. When pressed (and Sans can press hard when he wants to), Edge admitted to the existence of mutual collaring. Otherwise, he’d gleaned only that questions like Sans's require that Red’s collar be insufficient or defective in some way, because Sans doesn’t have LV.

Sans left it at that, but only because he didn’t want to be the first murderer responsible for literally embarrassing someone to death. He’d still carried the hurt around until a month later. That was when Red showed him the straps from the first time, let him feel how he’d changed them. Showed the blindfold he’d added. He’d explained, in his own way, that the straps were a solution to one issue, but had caused two more.

Then he asked Sans if he’d be willing to give soul play another try.

Hesitantly, considering his freakout the first time. But as soon as Sans saw how it made Red feel, his own hesitance had disappeared for good. Touching him was even better, and Sans came away from that lovely experience with a new understanding.

Wearing Sans’s collar would be too much for Red. He can’t carry the weight, and Sans’s offer had made him confront that before he was ready. Somewhere along the fucked-up line Red’s hardware got wired wrong, so a lot of software doesn’t run how it should. Feeling too much good at once can make bad stuff happen in his head, and another Judge's gaze on his soul had caused dangerous, immediate panic. The panic had attached itself to a memory of only person who’d ever figured out a way to successfully restrain someone who knows shortcuts (along with the fact that no one will ever find out what happened to him, or how he was able to do it).

The straps prevent the panic, and the blindfold keeps Red from seeing the memory.

They’re made exactly like a Fell collar. Like _Sans’s_ collar, which is designed specifically to bypass Red’s murderous scared-to-death mode… and _make_ him let someone take care of him. It chooses when he can’t, invokes a promise made to his future self. Red keeps it, then lets Sans touch his soul (and sometimes other things Red asks for beforehand) until he’s a weeping, quivering mess spattered with nearly every fluid he’s capable of making.

But it’s a once in a while kind of thing. Red needs the rest of the day to recover, sometimes two. He spends that time just kind of quietly existing, taking what he’s given and blinking slowly at stuff. Otherwise he’s normal.

Well, a touch more agreeable than usual, lets Sans take care of him with a greatly reduced litany of insults and bitching. And there was that one time he kept asking if Sans loved him, pestering him until he said it at a loss for what else to do. Red had just shivered without getting crazy horny. Then he said it back like he was ordering a burger, and continued eating the takeout fries Sans had provided and watching his schlocky sci fi movie.

Sans quietly decides that tomorrow he’s going to ask Red if he’ll touch Sans’s soul instead.

Soul play isn’t the kind of thing you ask someone if they’ll let you do. You wait to for them to offer, and Sans never has. He’s always been afraid Red would get in there and find something horrible, or even worse, just...nothing. The howling emptiness where a person is supposed to be.

Tonight, Sans feels so full he’s not sure he can hold it all. He’s not really sure what to do about that, so he just does what he does best.

Sans closes his sockets and goes to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -please assign any inconsistencies to my completely fried brain...but i THINK i got them all.
> 
> -of course i'm writing a bonus chapter, i have no self control ;) it is known.


	7. Lazy Afternoons (Bonus)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
>  _Love, love is a verb_   
>  _Love is a doing-word_   
>  _Fearless on my breath._
> 
> \--[Massive Attack – Teardrop](https://youtu.be/Tb0MC0jFv6M)
> 
> Hey, so! This is going to touch on, like, reproductive talk a bit? It will in no way resemble human systems, i.e., skeletons don’t get pregnant. I’ve also been super vague (for me) about how they’ve been fucking, i.e., there have been no tab a and slot b descriptions. This is going into how not-human the fucking is.

“would the, uh. straps help?”

Red gives Sans’s back another soothing stroke, his smile and touch imbued with the patience that’s been easing back into his soul the past umpteen years or so. Sans is just a little embarrassed his soul’s so shy. Took ages for it to manifest at all, and fizzled out just now before Red could glimpse it.

They’re lying together in Red’s upstairs bed-nest, nice and comfy. Hell, he even locked the door. This is not the kind of thing you want walked in on even by Red’s standards, and he used play fastest gun in the west under the table at Grillby’s on the regular.

(Whoever comes first loses, and no one knew Red’s game was rigged. Of course he took bets.)

“nah,” Red tells Sans gently. “you don’ need that shit. don’t think they’d work for you anyhow.” He cups Sans’s face, gives him an encouraging smile when he looks up. He traces those painfully smooth zygomatic processes with his craggy thumbs and adds, “i c’d do this all day, sweetheart.” He winks, and Sans blushes harder. “they still work fer me, though, in case you decide to stick w’ the plan after all.”

Sans relaxes a little at that, even though he’s still blushing under Red’s fond, patient caresses. Red’s down for pretty much anything, and Sans always functions better when he’s reminded he has an out...even if it’s something he wants to do. Sometimes especially then, and goddamn, can Red relate. Sharing his soul with Sans scares the shit out of him. Present tense. It never went away, Red just did what he always does. He found a way to cheat.

The collar takes the fight out of him, because that’s literally what it’s for. Scruffs him just like a newborn kitten, getting carried out of danger in its momma’s teeth. He learned a while ago that cat’s teeth sense pressure to the ounce just like Red’s. It’s why they can carry them around without hurting em, because they can _feel_ exactly how tight to hold em. Who knew.

“that’s cool,” Sans whispers into his shoulder, and Red realizes he’s been thinking out loud again. He huffs in amusement, because that’s the kind of stuff Sans says to him in here, sometimes. Just lets his mind air itself out, because when they’re together like _this_ ….it’s okay to do that. Part of the point, for Red at least. Maybe Sans is the same.

“was thinkin’ i might look into how to make pickles n shit like that,” Red rambles. He’s got his hand down on Sans’s lower spine under his clothes, massaging and squeezing. “you know you c’n pickle the leaf part of a mustard? heard it’s good with eggs, too. gives it a nice bite….”

“think i’m ready,” Sans sighs, and Red’s soul flutters with excitement. He reaches up to brace San’s arms again, and Sans does the same as he puts just enough space between them. He blushes and closes his sockets at whatever's in Red's expression, but when Red squeezes his arms, he squeezes back.

“red….” Sans breathes. His hands tighten and his brow knits deep, but his next shudder comes with a long, shaky sigh.

Sans opens his eyes as his body relaxes, and a silvery, cyan-and-yellow-tinged heart manifests between them.

“ohhhh…” they exhale in awed unison.

The point faces up, graceful twin curves beneath. Sans’s heart is white with love, silvered with hope, grey with compassion. Patience and justice coil iridescent across its surface to guide them. The presence of their bodies, the presence of _magic_ allows it to manifest: an utterly metaphysical object.

Two Judges Looking at the same time is...a lot. Red can’t handle it himself, but it sits easier on Sans. They both see why, because they’re looking right into what makes him who he is. There’s a reason folk say they have a body, not that they _are_ a body. This is what _has_ the body, and it’s someone Red already knows like the back of his hand.

This is Sans.

They cling to each other, and all Red can think about (see? he’s not sure) is the first time he ever saw Sans’s secret smile.

Strange for someone who never seems to stop smiling, but he’s got a million of em. They’re all different and they’re all the same, just like his jokes. Nothing special going on, he’d just been watching their brothers goof off. Switched clothes and pranced around, doing impressions of each other that had them all fuckin’ rolling. And Sans was off to the side, pretending like he was about to fall asleep. Just watching them becoming happy, becoming _family_ , after a few subtle lines delivered to suggest they were more the same than different. Sans cracking wise, both of them screaming at him, and suddenly all their awkwardness was gone.

And Sans’s _smile_ , its warmth wrapped painfully around a ball of untouched ice.

Red’s a belligerent little pigeon, bullying people into doing what they had to do, into letting him give them what they need. (There’s a reason he charged top G underground, back in his sweetie-collar days. Still too weak a balance for doing what Red had to do.) But Sans is...subtle. He takes care of everyone in all the ways that aren’t obvious. Little nudges in the directions they wanna go, a toe-trip back from an unseen cliff. He diffuses tension, sets things in motion, makes sure people get what they need...just not from _him_.

And that’s the sticking point. Sans always saw himself outside of that happiness.

Sans’s secret smile was just like the little match-girl’s in the fairy tale, freezing to death in a snowbank. Red’s a fucking judge too, not that he ever uses it. But he still saw Sans watching his life through a window, the happiness of those enjoying the warmth and light inside like a movie to him. Like nothing _he_ could ever touch. If he even realized he could go in, he was sure the tundra inside him would upset some delicate balance, turn the hearth cold and the welcome empty. Why ruin a good thing? Better to just make sure they’re happy and keep himself out of it.

_Bullshit._

Sans makes a faint, regretful little noise. Red has no way to know if they’re having the same experience, but that’s true of anything. Feels like they are, though. He’s vaguely aware of how they hold each other’s arms, of their heavy, steady breathing heating the tiny space between them where Sans’s soul manifests. Not cold anymore. They’ve been together a long, long time now. No surprises in here except the same one he wakes up under (or on top of) every day. The part where Sans _loves_ him, then wakes up and proves it.

Well, turns out Sans got a big surprise, too.

Red came into Sans’s life like a reverse burglar, moving everything from that mythical “inside,” to where Sans was…without him noticing. (Sans is good. Red is better.) Then he got him on the couch, wrapped him in a blanket, and just fucking _sat_ on him til he thawed his way back to life.

“y’still got me...” Sans exhales shakily. The stark white curve of his jaw arcs in the background, silvered by his own secret light as his skull lolls on the pillow. “…got me right under that paw a yours....”

Red trembles, makes a strange little grunt.

Sans doesn’t feel like Red stole his heart. More like Red stole the whole fucking _world_ and brought it right here just for him. Made Sans really _be_ in the place he already was, then wrapped him in his arms and just loved the shit out of him. Filled him right up with it, then made room for more. Room for Red, _always_ , right next to Sans. And Sans….he’s right where he _belongs_ , always. Beside him, inside him, _together_. Red sees his sockets slip shut, but can’t look away from his soul.

It’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“...touch me, pumpkin,” Sans whispers.

Red does.

Sans’s entire body writhes gently in place, and a low croon chases his breath out til it’s gone.

Red huffs deliriously, uses Sans’s movement to guide him closer. He holds his soul safe under their chins and tries to steady his swimming skull, but it’s not easy. Sans is literally in the palm of his hand, pulsing prismatically with more love than Red ever imagined possible. He’s also in his arms, quivering with the immediacy of Red’s presence.

“... _yeah_ ,” one of them whispers. Red’s not sure who, and it probably doesn’t matter. _Yeah_ is exactly how it feels.

Red’s _right_ here… _always_ gonna be here, _yeah_. Gonna keep him safe and warm. That warmth seems to travel down to fill Red’s pelvis, but he’s not even sure this tender, protective ache is a sex thing. He lets out a raspy sigh and tries to brace himself again.

“you okay, sweetness?” he breathes. Red shifts as Sans sucks in a ragged breath, and okay, maybe it _is_ a sex thing. Red’s junk isn’t even out, but the joints of his pelvis are leaking on the inside of his shorts.

“mmn… m’okay. feels good...” Sans manages, but he clings and shivers like the first time Red fucked him. A little of that association must’ve come through because Red feels Sans’s confusion, although it’s not a bad thing. He’s just _curious_ , and hoo boy, that shit always does Red right in.

“don’t think this feels like fuckin’ unless you want it to, sweetheart,” he whispers. Red always wants it to; he usually wants both at the same time. He likes being overwhelmed, all his fear and pain lost in the sauce. But Sans can bear a gentle touch, and Red’s never wanted to be softer than he does right now.

Red gives Sans his first stroke with the inner joint of his thumb: a slow, exploratory circle.

Sans huffs rapid and shallow, like a puppy startled by a new scent.

“you want it to?” Red asks.

“red...”

Sans only breathes his name, but the sudden, hot flare of want in his hand moves Red’s thumb again. Sans tenses with surprised pleasure, then relaxes again with a shiver. The sweet ache in Red’s pelvis doubles, and his own soul throbs.

“wanna try how i like it?” Red suggests. He’s so in tune with him now, he feels the answer more than hears it. A deep swell of better-than-expected, a rush of love. His name again, exhaled as Sans relaxes into his touch. Red follows instead of trying to brace himself anymore, gives in to whatever this is gonna be. Yeah, that’s how Sansy does it. S’different. This is _Sans_. And it….he…. feels _so_ fucking good.

Red’s mouth is a weapon: speaking, biting, or good old fashioned extortion. Sans pants shallowly as Red guides his soul to his tongue. He executes a slow, delicate movement that expresses the entirety of Red pleasuring Sans with his mouth. Using it like this is so much _better_ ; this is nothing but good. This is eating and breathing, like something Red might die without now he’s had a taste.

It’s _love_ , happening in a sideways zone that makes it okay, for some reason. He feels Sans open up for him, a shivering collapse to reveal the abyss of need he keeps guiltily hidden behind his eyes. The part Sans worried was an absence, but...no, baby. Not a chance. This need’s big and blowsy, and Red’s always known it, felt it. It’s just one more part of Sans to love. Red hears his own groan from far away as he licks deep to taste it, to _fill_ it. Red’s _here_. He’s always gonna be here, as long as he can. Just like he promised.

Sans makes a strangled, breathy wail, rattling like a wooden fence in a hurricane.

Then the soul dissolves away, leaving Red to pull Sans’s shuddering bones against him and suck memories off his fingers.

They come down together, even though it’s not really a...directional process. Just desire changing shape as they shiver and fondle each other. Red’s spread hand massages Sans’s skull in slow circles, scritching here and there at faint seams and creases in the bone.

“didja come, tomatahpie?”

“somethin’ like that...?” Sans says, sockets still closed beneath a faint sheen of sweat. “…heh. s’nice.”

“yeah,” Red agrees happily. “you need anything?”

Sans cracks a socket open, doesn’t speak. His whole skull is flushed, though, and Red knows that soft tremble in his eye. Red lets his own yearning peek out, veiled under a lascivious leer like lingerie.

“you wanna get inside me, sweet cheeks?”

He asked last night, sure, but things went a little differently than they discussed.

A hot gush of breath comes out of Sans before words, then a hoarse little _yeah_ as his hands slither inside Red’s clothes. Sans favors Red’s spine so subtly as he gets him out of his shirt, it would fly totally under the radar if Red didn’t already know he was doing it. The patch has been absorbed and the old crack sealed for weeks now, but Sans still babies it. What a sap.

Once clothes go extinct, Red cups Sans’s face in his hands to admire the rawness of his desire. It doesn’t get old. Sans letting himself _want_ something, anything, always comes off…transgressive. Red could cream his shorts just watching this asshole eat a burrito.

And yeah, Red just had his tongue buried directly in that need, but nothing can take the shine off this penny. Not for Red. Looking at him now...Sans wants sex, sure. But he also very specifically wants _Red_ , and that feels like the kinkiest shit ever. A noise squeaks out of him as warm bone slides against his magic; he blushes when it makes Sans smile. He always says Red’s the only person he’s met who’s so horny it can distract him from sex. Red had had that put on his business cards.

“all ready for me, pumpkin?”

“yeah,” Red exhales, and for a second he’s not sure why that makes Sans all soft and squishy. Then he remembers he’s supposed to say “i’m always ready to go,” but… Well, whatever. That was fucking intense. If Sans wants to top, he can be in charge of keeping the punchlines landing.

Red closes his sockets, still lost in the experience as it blends into this one. Everything they’ve been, that they _are_ to each other….each moment unfolding like a painted fan. When Sans leans in for a kiss Red gives it up easy, adds another noise to the bargain as Sans touches their magic together. He gets moving to fuck Red how most monsters do it, just rubbing their junk together until they squirt or spawn or whatever their shit does. Sans drags it out so long it’s like he forgot what he was doing, but Red knows better by now.

It _is_ what he thought the first time he let Sans inside him. They’d been rubbing like usual, where Sans would come, then use his mouth or his hands to make Red come, too. They’ve got the same exact thing down here, so Red supposes the difference made him curious after a while. Sans asked if he could be inside him, fuck him deep instead of regular.

Red had agreed since he’d already decided he’d let Sans do pretty much whatever, then braced himself for a needy shove that never came. Sans just kept kissing and holding him how he always would. Eventually Red assumed he changed his mind, which is when that first inward pulse happened.

(Red closes his eyes, shivering and caressing smooth ribs over and over. He can’t stop thinking about Sans’s taste. Can’t stop _Feeling_ it.)

Red had expected the invasive pressure he’d grown accustomed to, and had mostly been looking forward to seeing how Sans liked it. What he _got_ was a gentle, curious throb. Red held his breath as it increased, and Sans had broken the kiss to check on him. He’d felt the heat of his regard like a touch, that same curiosity tracing Red’s suddenly flustered expression, his averted eyes.

Red has a vivid recollection of watching his own femur rattle uncertainly in a loose circle of phalanges as Sans eased his legs apart. For a second he was sure he’d flip his shit, but it didn’t happen. Because Sans had apparently been expecting something else, too. So he’d met Sans’s gaze instead, soul whirling like a centrifuge.

A strange, silent truce had fallen, both of them waiting to see what would happen. Sans had nudged further in, and Red let his expression play like a movie. Hesitance at the difference, growing interest overtaking it as Sans folded his leg up expertly to present Red’s pelvis.

Sans tipped him at an angle and poured like beer into Red’s glass, surging in for a few deep, careful strokes. He drew back slow to let an effervescent head of sensation swell up above the rim; when he pushed in again, Red overflowed. His entire body twitched hard, finally recognizing what it felt as _pleasure_ and latching on to it desperately...

Then and now, Red lets out an awed, toothy sigh.

Sans always asks him if he’s ready, then makes him _wait_ til his body catches up. Turns out that has its perks, even if Sans _is_ a manipulative little shit who does weird things to his feelings (and keeps making him invent new ones). Red nudges his frontal bone against Sans’s arm, soul-dreaming his way through Sans’s slow entry until he’s all filled up.

“good, pumpkin?”

Red opens his sockets to the present, mouth still flooded with him, tasting Sans’s patience on his tongue. He gazes up at Sans’s gentle grimace, the breathy question as familiar as waking tangled in his bones. Red knows he gets quiet sometimes, and Sans knows it’s not a bad thing. He’s just….thinking or something.

( _Feeling_ )

Red’s mouth trembles uselessly for a second, disarmed by Sans’s weirdly amiable sex-face. He always looks so fucking _happy_ about it. The white points of his eyes spread out huge and soft, inviting snowbanks Red could just curl up and die in.

There’s a kind of peace in there Red expected to find only in death. Then the universe broke so it could show up early...so Red could actually _enjoy_ it for a while. Only idiots catch feelings, ‘cause everyone dies eventually. But when Sans looks at him like _that_ …the comforting possibility that Red might go first asserts itself. Makes him wanna give Sans his money’s worth before he cashes out.

“yeah.” Red doesn’t care that his voice is weak, that it shakes and cracks. Sans didn’t only ask that time, or this time. It’s _every_ time, like it’s his fuckin’ kink or something. Red adds, “it’s _all_ good, sweetheart,” and wraps his legs loosely around Sans’s hips.

“yeah,” Sans agrees throatily, then leans down to take what he needs.

Red’s mouth is sharp and dangerous, and he loves that Sans kisses it like he wants to stay on its good side. That’s why Red gives it to him. Sans can’t ever seem to get enough...but he fucks him so gently Red can’t help making greedy movements under him. Sans waggles his hips like he’s tempting something feral with a treat; Red laughs into their kiss as he surges right up to _get_ him some.

He wonders if Sansy ever figured it out.

It was _Sans_ who taught Red how to like having someone inside him. It’s what made him able to teach Sans right back, since apparently he just hadn’t at all. Red saw it, felt it. He’d spared a second to curse himself; he should have known. Sans doesn’t let people in. And for whatever reason, sex got all tangled up in his metaphor. Sans-brand bullshit: it’s patented for a reason.

Before Sans, Red would have just stopped. But Red knew that they could try breathing together until Sans forgot to worry about it. Til he relaxed so Red could gently knead himself inside, yeah, keep kneading together like twining fingers, like _now_ , just like _this_ ….

Red shivers as Sans moves around, squeezes back in answer.

Red has felt a lot of people chasing delights Red’s body could provide. But Sans wants to _give_ Red pleasure, and his intent guides him in. Feels different because _Sans_ is different. Curious. Generous. Eager to please, and patient enough not to stumble over his own dick to get there. Or maybe that’s just because Sans doesn’t use it for this.

Sans’s pelvis moves against Red’s, much the same as his hands move when he directs his magic. Doesn’t always have to, but it helps. Sans’s magic swells, and Red’s opens responsively. Sans pleasures them both by thrusting to fill him until he shudders and coils, then pushes further to tangle into Red’s magic. They sway in the same direction for a bit...then a set of outward pulses makes Red huff and sweat with bliss.

It takes attention this way. This ain’t the kind of fucking where you can diddle your spine to get it out, bend over, and think about what you’re gonna make for dinner later. Sans pulling his magic back draws Red’s out still _around_ him, and he sandwiches both between their pubises for some squishy grinding.

They can let go like this with each other, because how they feel keeps them in sync. Intent mingles their bodies, desire shaping and reshaping them. Their junk’s only static quality is that it has an inside and an outside; Sans is currently rubbing his outside on Red’s inside. Turns out that can mean just about anything they want it to; just so happens everything at once is Red’s favorite. Hell, sometimes Red looks down feeling more fucked than he’s ever been in his life, and it’s just a roiling cloud in a jittering pelvic frame.

Gorgeous.

Sans pulls Red’s leg over his shoulder, an enamored frown creasing his damp brow. Red huffs with excitement as Sans leans closer to fold him up, getting his arms under and around him until Red’s a cozy little bone fuckball. It leaves their faces level, inches apart. Pretty kinky….but Red and Sans like to watch each other. Sans’s teeth part as his panting deepens, then starts becoming words. Sans never realizes he does it until he’s been at it for a while, and Red fucking loves that. Loves _him_.

Sans really starts putting his back into it, and the soft jangle of the collar’s buckle dings like a triangle in Red’s favorite song. Ahh, that’s just perfect… that’s his precious lil peach. Sans whines, because apparently Red said that out loud. They really are a _pear_. He fingers the spaces in Sans’s back, reaches low with the other to grip his spine just above where it flexes rhythmically.

“...gorgeous...,” Sans’s rambling echoes Red’s thoughts like a dream, “s….so...fuckin’….y-yeah~!” He chokes off as Red’s hand creeps higher, bows his skull obediently under Red’s fingers. Red grips the collar for the rush it gives him, to hear Sans’s tender cry. Red’s not a moaner like Sans; well, not under most circumstances. But he exhales a growl when Sans’s magic flows and surges, the circular rasp of bone on bone becoming a clacking tempo just as quick.

“… _shit!_ ohhh, you— _jus_ ’ like that, _there_ , love that shit,” and that’s Red’s breathless babble, he’s solid _gone_ , he’s all, “love it, _love_ when you-, ahh _fuck_... l….lo-” Sans whines, and his soul flutters so hard Red can feel it. His magic tangles tight in his skull, and he hiccups, “tell me, baby. s’okay….”

“...red _…_ ” Sans says it just like he did with his soul out. When Red was _touching_ him, his voice thick as spiked syrup between them. Like he _needs_ him, and not for what he can get. Just...for himself. To stay with him, and he is. Like he needs Red to love him, and he _does_. Sans _says it_ , he says “love you so much...” and Red can’t take it.

He cries out, he _answers_ , his magic igniting like a faulty furnace to bathe Sans’s with its violent heat. His body’s fire burns away his fear, leaves the rest of him bare and trembling. He wishes he could tell him all the time, but it’s not fair when Sans can’t always say it. Just turned out that way…turned out to be a sex thing. Just a loud cry of fearless pleasure, but he wants to say it forever.

“sans-!” Red pleads instead, his quaking body scalded with need to rival Sans’s. But there aren’t any rivals here, only two full-of-shit fuckers running hard in the same direction.

“gonna come, pumpkin?” Sans asks breathlessly. He always tries to get Red close as he can, because fucking him the way Red needs to get there makes _him_ pop off in minutes. Sometimes too soon, but Red never minds even if he can’t keep going. Red loves Sans’s mouth, fingers, and all the rest of him just as much. Loves this _soul_ , holy shit, his fuckin gorgeous… beautiful….

“c’mon!” Red chokes. “-please!”

Sans’s shiver boils his bones until it vents itself in a shaky growl. He gives Red hard pulses of pure fullness, a deep, sliding impact that Red can barely contain. His spine arches back despite himself; he doesn’t want distance, he wants to be even closer.

He’s so glad Sans is here, chasing the arc of Red’s body so he can moan against his face. A subtle change in Sans’s magic, an inward curl to gather up Red’s juddering insides. Red whimpers with desperation; this always feels like he can’t let go no matter how hard he tries. He has to make it happen, or he has to be pushed. He chooses the latter, scrabbling his fingers between the ribs of Sans’s back so he can hold on for the ride.

It _could_ feel violent, but it never does. Instead it’s like Sans grabbing his hips from behind, running him full speed like a battering ram towards something _awesome_. Red feels it quake up from inside him, like the whole world’s gotta break open to let out a feeling this big. Red chokes in frustration for a second that becomes two, despite everything.

Then Sans’s fingers appear right where Red needs them, following unerringly as it shifts. Two hard strokes, and the surface-skin that keeps him from flying finally cracks; so does Red’s voice as he hurtles over the edge. His body floods with release as Sans gets airborne right behind him.

He barely hears Sans’s ragged noise, but he feels it vibrate through their bones. That stuttering spiral loosens inside him as it spends out Sans’s tension, and Red’s smaller load joins it. They hug each other tighter and drag it out, seething heat swelling out a space for itself between their quivering magic. They finish coming in and on each other with a few uncoordinated humps, then their limbs starfish out in rattling, panting unison.

Sans hit a moving target _and_ stuck the landing, tens across the board. Red’d high five him if he had control of any of his limbs right now.

“…little _stars_ , that was good,” Sans eventually purrs into his neck, then gives it a chattery mock-bite that makes him shiver. Red’s skull wobbles contentedly as Sans pushes a hand under the pillow to rummage around. He pulls out a soft cloth and dabs Red’s sockets and forehead. Doesn’t rush, and Red never stops loving that, or that part where he sets it on his chest and leans up. He doesn’t bother opening his sockets, just enjoys the high of being stuffed and wet inside, of being _satisfied_. Sans nuzzles indolently under his jaw, whispering his little sugar-lies.

“swear i could squirt off again just on how you look right now,” he rambles, his hand’s slow trip down Red’s body finally finding their pelvises. Didn't even need a map. “so fucking gorgeous, pumpkin…” a little kiss on his socket that makes him shiver, “...so pretty when you come…”

Red just sighs peacefully, tips his skull the other way so Sans will nibble his vertebrae some more. He does. God, this is _his_ sweetie, for real and for good. He doesn’t have to be touching the collar to feel how true it is, just close, but he wants to. Red paws at Sans’s back in thoughtless attempt, then gives up and just rests his arm there as he arches up.

Getting their downstairs separated after can be complicated depending on how they end up, but Sans has lots of practice. Sans works a thumb in with slick expertise as he nuzzles Red’s mandible. Its strategic presses aid his exit along with backward pulses of his hips, and Sans makes a breathy _hah_ noise as he finally spills free.

Red mewls through a pleasant aftershock as Sans dandles a finger in the curiously flexing rim of the opening he left. Sans likes to play in it, the dirty little bitch. Sometimes even skips the napkins and uses his mouth instead. _Stars_ , Red loves him. Sans contents himself with a fondle this time, flops to the side, then quickly puts the cloth on the spot. He presses down on it, idly massaging out their jizz.

The pressure prevents Red’s magic from closing over it like a little pocket, which would keep Red’s genitalia emerged until it’s used or absorbed. Red’s not fond of the feeling, though Sans doesn’t seem to care. Sort of like walking around with a snail attached to the back of your neck. Which, come to think of it, Sans has also done. Fuckin’ weirdo.

He doesn’t always mind if he misses a spot at times like this, when the jittery feeling that makes him push gentle hands away is fucked right out of him. Makes the collar feel even _better_. Taking it that hard is intense, and his magic’s too tired to jitter much for a few minutes. That’s half of why he lets Sans do it whenever he wants. The other is that it actually feels good when he does it.

The reason for the pocket thing is just in case Red loses his fucking mind and decides there needs to be another skeleton in the world. Their junk hangs on to what they leave on or in each other to give them time to think it over. It doesn’t matter how they fuck, but the inside’s a little harder to get to than the outside. Whoever tops cleans up, them’s the breaks.

Red cracks a socket open to see if Sans bothered. Heh. Nope, there’s Sansy’s little crotch-snail now. On him, it almost looks cute. Sans is deciding too, his clock’s just shorter. Good thing they did souls first, because Sansy doesn’t…he doesn’t know. Something. Red’s fuck-rusted thought-gears are groaning into motion sooner than he’d like, but it’s probably important if it’s interrupting his sacred afterglow.

“…ever feel sorry f’r humans?” Red slurs vaguely.

Sans’s weird squeak makes Red’s shoulders wobble with silent giggles.

“jus’ meant...right now’s when we could…y’know?”

His body knows what to do already, always has. Get his soul to manifest, allow the magic in the pocket to catalyze so his soul buds. Pluck the bud, ensoul the magic, easy-peasy. Sorta like bringing a nasty doll made of jizz to life, but Red’s the only person who can make all that happen. Don’t even need partners when it comes down to it, but it’s better to have at least one. Gaster proved that, although Sansy says in _his_ underground none of his and ‘Russy’s defects were a problem.

“hell’s that got to do with humans?” Sans asks with an indulgent nuzzle.

“mmn...jus’ meant how they can do it on accident,” Red sighs. Then he drags Sans back up to lie on him, and he loses the cloth as he goes. Red’s junk closes gently over the tiny bit left, and he minds as little as he’d thought. “explains a lot about em, if ya think about it.”

Sans is quiet. When he shifts, Red sees his flicker of alarm before he flattens it back down.

“no, _i’m_ not ~thinking~ about it,” Red chuckles. “asgore fuckin’ wept, you’re a cheesy bitch.” Then he sobers.

“jus’ meant….you know about budscares, right?”

Sans flushes hard to the top of his skull. He’s gonna be cagey about it. Fucking figures.

“they just go back in unless ya pluck ‘em,” Red says gently. Sans makes a noise to clear flustered magic through his skull, eyes slithering firmly away from Red’s.

“to think, you waited all this time to give me the bones n the bees talk,” he snips, then immediately looks regretful.

“just _sayin_ ’,” Red says, letting his teeth slip into his voice just a little, “ _knowing_ shit and having it maybe _happen_ is different, fuckface _._ ”

Red takes a deep breath, lets it out slow. He’s gotta _say_ it. Say it like Sansy does, even when it feels like pulling out your own teeth. Can’t really look at him, though. He stares at Van Gogh’s _Smoking Skull_ on his wall, hopes folks are enjoying the perfect replica he’d left in its place for posterity.

The centuries-old shitpost from someone as fucked up as he is lends Red its strength.

“happened t’ me twice, maybe. ya just, uh…feel a lil weird for a day or two.”

“…with me?” Sans asks in a small voice. Red’s heavy brow lifts on its own, and he wheezes with unexpected mirth. Relief’s in there too, because Sans never reacts the way Red ~~fears~~ thinks he will. Every gamble Red’s taken on his little peach has paid off in ways he never expected.

“nah, it was some human football team, and the other while me n undy-pants was cuckin’ alphys in bermuda,” Red drawls. Then he plaps his palm gently across Sans’s skull in a mock-cuff. “yeah, with _you_ , dumbass.” Maybe less of a cuff, and more chafing his head all over in a blowzy, affectionate circle. He doesn’t duck away, so he pulls Sans’s head down and tucks it against his chest. Sans goes meek as a kitten, and Red keeps whispering his worldly wisdoms against the top of his dome.

“…look. i’m not makin’ any as _sump_ -pumps, but you seemed to like that okay. you should know if we did the fucking first and souls _after_ , or...all at once.” How Red likes it. “that c’n happen if you, uh….”

Feel a certain way about someone, turns out. Red’s sockets hood as he rasps his teeth pensively along smooth, curved bone.

“...sorta feels like….”

Nothing he ever expected. It’s too big to hold.

“happens, uh, real quick. ya don’t….realize _that’s_ what you’re doing.”

Sans stays quiet, lets him say what he needs to say. His thumb strokes Red’s humerus where he holds it gently.

“…i just…don’t want you to flip your shit if it does. that’s all.”

Like Red had. Very privately, and at an undisclosed location.

Sans gives him a squeeze, and he’s not even looking at him. Of course he _knew_ , right? Sansy-pansy, nosy-nancy, head up everyone’s ass. He had to have-

“i didn’t know, pumpkin,” Sans breathes, and Red’s face crumples. His arms tighten without his permission, pulling Sans up until his face touches the collar. He lets himself hide there, just for a minute.

Well, Red didn’t know either. He fucking should have, though. Probably.

Red knows what it’s like to have his _shitty_ feelings climb into his ribcage and drive him around like a car. He can still feel that directing his hands instead of what he _thought_ , including the kinda shit that ends with someone in a dustpan. Thing is, Red hadn’t known it can override your actions from a completely different direction.

And it had again been fear that did him in.

Even now, Red does his best to guide his mind around just how much he has to fucking lose these days. The better something is, the more it hurts when you lose it. It’s bad enough that Red loves Sans as much as he does. To have that….reciprocated? To feel it stroking everything Red is all at once? While Sans fucked him just like he asked beforehand, filled up with Sans everywhere he could be? They have room for each other, and all the shit they feel about it. It was far from the first time they’d done that kind of thing, but…

Turns out that can be too much, even with the straps. His soul had had the impulse to _make more room_ for the terrifying amount of love happening in him, giving and taking. The same Red that leapt off barstools to punch someone out in a blink…decided that was a fantastic idea. And it’s not the kind of thing anyone else can see, or even touch. Even after his soul wasn’t out anymore, he felt Sans’s love like a fingertip on his heart he couldn’t escape. It followed him to the lee of a rock, curled up listening to the Khongoryn Els sing. It was a formless euphoria that melted back into him drop by drop, shivering under a fucking park bench in a ghost town outside Anchorage.

“it’s ok if maybe you couldn’t say it til we were even,” Sans says quietly.

“i dunno,” Red whispers. “i dunno.”

More like Sans would’ve hung around, done a lot of stuff that made Red feel like it was _okay_ that it happened. No big deal that Red couldn’t stop it from happening, didn’t know what he was doing. Roast his chestnuts about it. Or maybe would have just put him on the couch and turned on some garbage program, made that special thing for dinner. Sans puts fries all over a baking sheet, dumps out a bag of precooked bacon, buncha cheese, crumbles a sleeve of crackers, then puts pickle peppers on top. He bakes it and brings it over, hands Red a plastic fork and a bottle of mustard. Then he eats half so Red won’t worry.

Red holds Sans tight, stroking the length of his spine the way _he_ really likes, and soaks in every last bit of the comfort he fled before.

“wouldja, though?”

“what?” Sans whispers.

“….tell me.”

Sans sighs.

“i’d like to think i would,” he says quietly after a minute or two. “but i heard a rumor that knowing something and having it happen is different.”

Red snorts weakly, and they relax into some normal cuddling. Bullshit and goofing off, talking about how little they have planned for these next few on account of they already had it marked off. Red really doesn’t want to see or talk to anyone else but Sans for a day or two after they get kinky. He doesn’t know if it’s the same for Sans, but it turns out Red feels the same now anyhow. Yeah….they’re gonna stay right here for a while.

And they do, Red gathering up all the pillows and blankets they’d fucked off onto the floor and tucking them in all around his sweetie. _His_ sweetie, all that sugar and spice _just_ for Red. He leans in and flickers a kiss on his tiny crotch-pocket to make him squeak at the tickle. He bops Red with a pillow shaped like a giant sushi, then uses it to cover his pelvis. Red waggles his eyebrows and flops down to lie his head on it.

“hmmm,” Sans sighs, stroking Red’s skull contentedly. “…i shoulda ordered us a pizza.”

“fuck a pizza,” Red purrs triumphantly, slowly pulling out the plastic bag he’d hidden inside a chenille throw while he was nesting. “i got the good shit.” And the sushi pillow has little hissy-crunchy beads inside to keep the bag’s rustle disguised, too.

Sans is good.

Red is better.

He finally heaves up with a groan, lying next to him instead of on his crotch. That’s so he can deliver the goods, and also so he can pinch out the reusable adhesive he keeps stuck on the inside of his chin. The gunk’s for his glasses, but he uses it to fasten his phone to his tented leg like a stand.

Red holds the end of a freshly peeled slim jim delicately between his teeth, then whacks Sans in the face with it. He giggles, bites it, and they nibble-race towards each other. He goes for a meaty kiss, but is sadly denied.

“it’s not as fun when you let me win every time,” Sans lies glibly. “no trophy for you.”

“eh, what can i say,” Red sighs, bathing Sans with the richness of beef….and spice. “i just can’t resist seeing that long meat goin’ in your mouth.”

Sans hums agreeably.

“well, gimme a few more hours and i c’n make all yer dreams _come_ true.”

“i never promised ya my cock,” Red demurs lightly, just to watch Sans’s predictable grin light his whole face.

“~waa _aa_ oh, rr~ed,” Sans warbles like a seasick dog, “ _gi_ mme your _di_ ck, _please_ , i n-”

“shut your _dick_ hole and maybe i’ll lay some pipe,” Red interrupts, but he can’t help the goofy smile that frames the words. Sans doesn’t leak when he bottoms anymore because they hold the shape when he does. Turns out he takes Red’s cock like a champ, since he doesn’t have to use the whole thing to get them both off. Red’s pelvis is leaking again just thinking about it; he _loves_ using his cock. And he loves Sansy, too, so that couldn’t have worked out more perfect. Red hums, enjoying another phase of unexpected afterglow as he stuffs Sans with twinkies, washed down with little sips of heavily flavored malt liquor. He’s still all fuckin’ _nostalgic_. It’s weird, but...good?

“outta curiosity,” he finds himself asking while their attention’s divided. “why’d you fuck me like that the first time?”

Sans swallows his mouthful.

“first why we what now?”

“first time fuckin’ how we just did,” Red chuckles.

“because i wanted to fuck you, and you said yeah?” Sans says, nonplussed.

“i mean-” Red grunts. If he’s honest, he’d admit he hadn’t even really know you _could_ do it without holding the shape. Not with a partner, at least. Since he isn’t honest, he says, “i mean, why’d you do it the _way_ you did?” Sans eyes him, and Red lets him. He keeps his own gaze on the video.

“that’s just how i do it,” Sans says slowly. “ease it in, hold the shape after. always started off just getting the lay of the land.”

“yeah, you got the lay alright,” Red snorts.

So _that’s_ the deal, and it’s an interesting one. Red had let the shape go when he thought Sans changed his mind, so pouring Sans’s beer into Red’s glass was actually more like pouring beer into beer. Red had liked it exactly how it was, so Sans had kept on and got creative with it. Red wishes _he’d_ known that trick back when he wore a sweetie-collar. Not just anything you want, but special ordered to fit you like a glove? He could have charged _double_. No wonder Sans got more ass than Grillby’s barstools.

Sans grins. “and the way i started off turned into _getting_ off, so. i’m guessing you didn’t have any complaints.”

They keep sassing each other comfortably, trying to get caught up on Edge’s new cooking series. Sans loves not learning anything. It’s apparently soufflés this time. Sans, of course, falls asleep halfway through. Red could sleep, sure. He could also watch the video, which is more interesting than he expected.

Instead he gets up on an elbow to study Sans’s slack features, absently unwrapping a candy pinched from the rustling white bag.

He’s still not over the fact that he can just eat candy whenever the fuck he wants. Or how he can have as _much_ as he wants, because he can always get more. Synthetic grape and hard sugar floods over his tongue like a promise: no matter how bad it gets, he can just reach into his pocket for another reminder that good things _can exist_ in the world, no matter how fucked up it is. That _he_ is.

Red is laying his _own_ trail to follow into the future, one good thing at a time.

This time, he follows it into the past. Not all the way, he feels too good for that right now. He only goes to just before (after?) the beginning.

He had walked down that justice-yellow hall a step at a time too, letting that be the countdown to his end. Red’s done countless things he knew he’d never forgive himself for. That’s exactly why he went there _as_ Sans, _to_ Sans. He didn’t want any goddamn forgiving, he just wanted it to finally fucking be _over_.

He just wanted to rest.

Red had started weeping in anticipation halfway there. It’s not a comfortable process in either direction, and Red’s got plenty of regrets. Red’s hand finds a rag, but it’s the jizz rag so he tosses it. Uses the chenille throw to wipe his face instead, even thought it sucks. With the ease of long practice, his mind glosses over the worst parts. Not _ignoring_ , just a gentle touch without absorbing anything, like the blanket on his face. That’s not the part he’s thinking about right now.

He’s thinking about what the Judge asked him.

**Do you think even the worst person can change?**

“i dunno,” Red had sobbed toothily. “i dunno.”

 **Then you owe this** **debt** **: to find out.**

“’m tired.” Red had shivered where he knelt, tears streaming down just like now. “’m so fuckin’ _tired_ , sansy. i dunno anything anymore.”

**The debt remains.**

“well, then why don’tcha _do something about it!?_ ” Red screamed til his voice shattered. “get on with it! i can’t fuckin’ _fix_ what i _did_!”

**Then you have to fix something else.**

The inescapable weight of Justice had pressed Red the rest of the way down onto the cold tiles. It pulled the truth from inside his bones, then bound his soul with itself. LV pressed flat between two layers of justice, exposing the seed of patience protecting its kernel of love-hope-compassion, waiting for Red to water it. Only Red could figure out what he had to give. He had to find out how to balance the world after what he took from it, and he’d retched with the agony and the comfort of it.

He still doesn’t know. He just wakes up every day and waters his seed, loves his people, tries his best.

Red’s fingers find another candy without his eyes, because they’re too busy right now. He pops it in his mouth, and thinks about before then. One more burst of sweetness bright as a guiding star, an oasis untouched in the trail of shit.

The moment he met Sans. First thing he _did_ was check him, no way he could miss it. Red’s LV is 15, and he was already a goner. Even with Al’s fancy cigars, Red _knew_ what something like him could do to the surface. What he could cause if a rogue judge flipped his shit, even once. Wouldn’t be a surface left once he was done.

If Toriel couldn’t stop the humans at the door, Red stopped em right after. Queenie knew whatever was up there didn’t need the likes of monsters fucking their shit up, and Red’s Justice constantly boiling under his LV sealed their pact.

There’s nothing Red can’t destroy, but that fucking _kid_ made him finally want to prove it. Made him _want_ to clear the way for them, let this dumbass squishy human finally bust their worthless asses out of the prison they all belonged in. Maybe some of em weren’t that bad. (Red’s bro was at the top of the list. Red did what had to be done, and Papy’s barely LV5.) And they did, but Red wouldn’t let the human go until they gave him the price he charged in return.

The deathblow.

Took enough tries, but eventually they figured out he wasn’t joking. He’d clutched his mortal wound in satisfaction and staggered into a shortcut, the last one he’d ever take. Not to get a pickpocket’s sniff of sunshine he didn’t deserve, that’s for sure. It was just… Paps wouldn’t fucking _leave_ , wouldn’t stop _trying_ ….and Red didn’t want his bro to watch him dust.

Finding white eyes pinned with shock in a strange-skewed version of his own face convinced him pretty quick he didn’t make it after all. If you’re already dead, no reason not to take whatever’s given to you. That ended up being a gift from himself: a whole new life in a shiny yellow bottle. Red can still see his eyes spread wide with concern, begging without words. Sees it every time, never gets old. That _need_ ; he needed Red then and he still does now. Red doesn’t know why (maybe he does). Maybe he just needs him right back.

Sans's eyes are hidden, dissolved and lidded in sleep, but Red sees them anyhow. Knows they're right here for him whenever he needs them, huge and soft as snow poffs, ready to catch Red’s dust and give him what he’d been chasing his whole misbegotten life.

_Peace._

Welp. Guess it really did a number on him.

Sans whimpers in his sleep. Red takes his hand, twines their phalanges together. He puts it on the collar, stops the video, and lies down on top of him instead. Red sighs from the depths of his soul, relaxed and calm as he takes another piece of something good he doesn’t deserve. He stores it reverently in the secret place he created for Sans...for himself.

In the expectant silence of his heart, he promises to find a way to pass it on.


End file.
